Looper (2012)Looper is a smart, inventive science fiction thriller released in 2012, written and directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom). In 2044, time travel doesn't exist yet — but in 2074 it will, and criminal organisations use it to dispose of targets by sending them back to be killed by specialised assassins called loopers. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one such looper, until the day his future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back as his next assignment and escapes. The film then splits into two parallel narratives — young Joe hunting old Joe, old Joe hunting the child who will grow up to become the crime lord who ordered his death — before converging at a Kansas farmhouse where Sara (Emily Blunt) and her son Cid hold the key to everything. The film grossed over $176 million worldwide on a $30 million budget and is one of the most intelligent and original science fiction films of the decade. Johnson uses time travel not as a puzzle to be solved but as a moral and emotional pressure cooker.Highlights Rian Johnson's screenplay — One of the great original sci-fi scripts of the decade; Johnson constructs his time-travel logic with real rigour, uses it to explore questions of identity, free will and self-sacrifice, and has the confidence to leave certain paradoxes deliberately unresolved. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance — A physically and vocally transformed turn; Gordon-Levitt studied Willis's mannerisms and speech patterns to create a convincing younger version of the same man, and the performance is a remarkable piece of sustained physical acting. The diner scene — The film's centrepiece; young Joe and old Joe sitting across a table from each other, arguing about the future, is one of the great two-hander scenes in recent science fiction — funny, tense and philosophically rich in equal measure. Emily Blunt as Sara — A grounded, fiercely intelligent performance that gives the film's second half its emotional weight; Blunt's Sara is tough, frightened and completely real, and her scenes with Gordon-Levitt give the film a human warmth that the time-travel mechanics alone could not provide. The ending — Johnson's resolution is both logically satisfying and genuinely moving; the film's final act reframes everything that has come before and delivers a conclusion of real moral courage that elevates Looper well above standard genre fare. Disc Details Title: Looper Year: 2012 Director: Rian Johnson Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Pierce Gagnon Studio: FilmDistrict / TriStar Pictures Certificate: 15 Region: Region B (UK) Format: Blu-ray Runtime: 119 minutes Genre: Science Fiction / Action / Thriller Barcode: 5030305516130 ConditionCondition: VG/VG — see our Condition Grading Guide.Browse our full range of Blu-ray titles. You might also enjoy our Compact Discs or Vinyl Records.
