How
would you like to sit in a diner having steak and scrambled eggs with a
version of yourself, but 30 years older, who also orders steak and
scrambled eggs?  How would you like to be Bruce Willis surrounded by 20
men with guns and you kill them all but can’t shoot and hit 2 people,
without weapons, running away from you? How would you like to travel
back in time and get rid of victims so they don’t cause any problems in
the present/future? How would you like to hire men, call them loopers,
to kill these men of the future today? Yes, we are in the world of
sci-fi which allows Hollywood to interfere now and then.

We
meet Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in 2044, a drug addict, alone who
doesn’t seem to care about anything or anyone. We, also, meet Joe (Bruce
Willis) in 2074. clean, married to a beautiful woman (Summer Qing),
wealthy and happy. Young Joe is taken off the streets and is trained as a
looper by Abe (Jeff Daniels) who eventually picks him to eliminate the
older Joe, who will be sent back by time travel for just that purpose by
the Rainmaker, the power boss of the future.

Due
to a mistake on young Joe’s part old Joe gets away and the chases begin
with the young Joe after old Joe and Abe’s men after the former for
bungling the job.and the latter to finish the job. Both Joes face each
other at the farm owned by a single, strong, fiercely independent woman
Sara (Emily Blunt) with a son Cid (Pierce Gagnon) and what the men do
here will change everyone's life.

Not
usually being good at this sort of thing I was able to figure out one
of the screenplay’s twist but it didn’t take away from the confusion I
usually face in sci-fi films as my mind doesn’t work that way. There are
moral questions regarding the life of one man versus the life of the
future.

Aside
from the expected heroics from Bruce Willis--see my second question--we
tend to forget the power he has in quiet, meaningful moments. Joseph
Gordon-Levitt does an excellent job as the young man living for the
pleasure of the moment, and though helped by make-up which he really
didn’t need, makes the scenes of 2 halves equalling a whole believable.
Emily Blunt is commanding and Pierce Gagnon as the child isn’t quite as
sure in his role. Paul Dano, as a not so successful looper, has all the
right moves but Jeff Daniels doesn’t seem to be a man who would be in
charge of killers.

The
direction by Rian Johnson suffices and his screenplay is interesting
and has you, well me, thinking after the movie is over. A major drawback
is that 2047 and 2077 looks the same as today. There are  a few
production ‘modern’ props plus a few hovercrafts and a Smartvan to carry
the looper’s silver nuggets but otherwise no surprises in how the world
looks.