{"id":1333,"date":"2012-10-24T08:20:08","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T08:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2026-10-30T18:49:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T18:49:39","slug":"looper-face-your-future-fight-your-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/entertainment\/film\/looper-face-your-future-fight-your-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Looper: Face Your Future, Fight Your Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Face Your Future; Fight Your Past. This is the tagline of Looper, a violent, assassin-driven alternative to Back To The Future. In it, a man from the future tries to change his past without getting killed by his younger self.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Looper<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt<\/a>) is an assassin. It’s not a hard job; he\u2019s a Looper, which means that when the mob 30 years in the future has a target, they kidnap him, bag his head and tie his arms, set him on his knees, and send him into the past where the Looper is waiting to shoot him point-blank. \u00a0All Joe has to do is be in the field when the mark appears, pull the trigger, and collect his silver bars as payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The twist in this somewhat entertaining shoot-em-up sci-fi thriller is that when his future self (Bruce Willis<\/a>) is sent back as the target, he escapes, making both men targets of the mob boss (Jeff Daniels<\/a>) Abe, who came from the future to set up the Looper program, and lives in the past to make sure it runs smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But what happens when the characters consist of a guy hell-bent on changing the past to save his wife in the future, pitted against his younger self — a Looper — who doesn’t care about anyone, including even his future self, with a mother (Emily Blunt<\/a>) thrown in the mix who is against all odds trying to make up for abandoning her child and ensuring his future safety? You get a bigger and better concept than the actual film itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire cast delivers strong performances, but the film, written and directed by Rian Johnson, lacks compelling connections between its characters and the audience\u2014I just wasn’t drawn in, and I love these types of plots. The film looks good, but something indefinable keeps it from being the mind-blowing experience it was meant to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good acting and a clever script garner 2 \u00bd stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Face Your Future; Fight Your Past. This is the tagline of Looper, a violent, assassin-driven alternative to Back To The Future. In it, a man from the future tries to change his past without getting killed by his younger self. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an assassin. It’s not a hard job; he\u2019s a Looper, which\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ba_format":"Film review","ba_short_answer":"","ba_case_file":"","ba_archive_note":"","ba_updated":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[246,247,249,248],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","tag-bruce-willis","tag-emily-blunt","tag-jeff-daniels","tag-joseph-gordon-levitt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2272,"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/2272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brieaustin.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}