Rian Johnson doesn’t miss

Rian Johnson is the best director/screenwriter working today – at this point, I’m pretty sure you can take that to the bank. The Last Jedi and Knives Out are my two favourite movies, compelling me to catch up with his previous work. First stop, 2012’s Looper.

Conclusion; Johnson just doesn’t miss. Looper is sensational.

It’s a story set in the near future of 2044. Time travel will be invented in 30 years time but instantly made illegal. The mob, not known for their law-abiding nature, sends victims back in time to be silently executed by hired killers known as Loopers. That’s what Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, although you wouldn’t know it) is. His job is soon complicated when he hesitates upon being faced with the future version of himself, played by Bruce Willis.

I’m a sucker for time travel movies. Perhaps it’s because I would love to hop in a time machine myself, offering some advice to teenage me and maybe pick up a lottery ticket on the way. Time travel can get messy though, and I’m not talking about betting on sporting events – the mechanics of the concept are a creative nightmare.

Looper handles it expertly. It doesn’t get bogged down in the science. In fact, Bruce Willis will personally shout at you if you start to try and figure it out.

Instead, this fictional concept is made to feel tangible. There are no flash-bangs or 88mph heroics required. Character’s will simply appear… or disappear… from the central timeline. If Joe in the central timeline scars his arm, the Joe of the future will bare a 30-year-old version of the same wound. Tangible.

But this film is more than a Sci-Fi concept. It’s a layered narrative that keeps you guessing. The reason I love Knives Out is how each and every line, frame and seemingly insignificant detail loops, (see what I did there,) back to importance.

Case in point; Richard innocuously throws Harlan’s baseball out the window, Blanc picks it up, throws it for the dog, who takes it to Linda, which leads her back to Harlan’s office and the revelation that Richard was having an affair. These seemingly innocuous details lead to a major plot point.

You simply can’t switch off for a moment when watching a Johnson movie.

In Looper, Joe tells us early on that telekinesis, known as TK, is a trait of one in 10 people. It immediately leads to a great one liner in that “every asshole is trying to impress a girl by floating quarters.” And that’s it. Seemingly the end of the line for TK’s significance.

Until we near the end of the movie and find out that the Rainmaker, the big bad 30 years into the future, has an extreme form of TK that cements his power. This is the child that Joe of the future (Bruce Willis) is going full-Terminator in search of. That plot thread is set up early on through what seems at face value to be a cheap world-building gag. Nothing is cheap in a Johnson script.

On a smaller scale, we know that a Blunderbuss – a Looper’s weapon – is useless when the object you’re trying to shoot is more than 15 feet away. That comes into play in the movie’s climax. In a shootout between young Joe and Kid Blue, Joe has to get inventive in order to make up for his weapon’s shortcomings. Again, another huge payoff to a relatively insignificant titbit.

The dialogue is as razor sharp as the plot and the actors rise to the occasion with Gordon-Levitt, Willis and Emily Blunt, who turns up half-way though the movie to inject new intrigue to the plot as the Rainmaker’s unsuspecting Mum, all delivering engrossing performances.

And the prosthetic “fake-face” used to make Gordon-Levitt look like a young version of Bruce Willis is superb. I mean, maybe not for fans of Gordon-Levitt’s actual face – because this isn’t him.

He would spend three-hours in the make-up chair before each day’s shoot in order to have the effects applied to his lips and nose. The real test was going to come in the diner scene when the two are face to face and it passes with flying colours. A miraculous practical effect, coupled with great acting from Gordon-Levitt who sounds and moves like Willis.

When everyone brings there A-Game you know that you’re going to end up with a special movie, and that is precisely what Looper is.