Looper is an imaginative and bleak film centering around a hit man who kills people from the future. These type of hit men are called loopers and this is because when the time comes each looper must be responsible for “closing the loop” when their future-self is zapped back to them. The conflict of Looper comes in the form of protagonist Joe’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) older self (Bruce Willis) being zapped back to 2044 and escaping.

Looper offers a lot of fresh and original ideas, but where it excels is in its fresh and original storytelling. Looper wasn’t just a good idea. Due to a utilization of its ideas and characters Looper was a flawless piece of art. I could expect nothing less from its creator, director Rian Johnson. Johnson was the director of only two films prior to Looper, The Brothers Bloom and his debut film, Brick. I loved both of them and subsequently I’ve been looking forward to Looper for a while now.

Looper is Rian Johnson’s best film and that’s coming from somebody who could easily call Brick a masterpiece. All three of the films Johnson has made are entirely unique. Stylistically, tonally, execution, you name it, all three of them are just very different films and on top of that, each of them are great in their own way. Looper stands above the pack as film masquerading as a dark and enthralling science fiction film when in reality it’s more importantly a human drama filled with complexities and violence.

Looper was a very entertaining film. There wasn’t a time when I was watching the film and not enjoying myself, it was fun and it’s a movie I see myself watching again and again. Looking layers deep, while Looper is completely entertaining, it is also a very dark and serious drama that takes on some very broad and insightful ideas. It’s a movie about time-travel, it’s a movie about death, it’s a movie about living and what that entails, it’s a movie about conscience, but most of all it’s a movie about decisions and the impact those decisions can have.

I loved Looper and I can’t wait to see it again. I loved the dialogue and the action. I loved each character and what they added to the overall drama of it all. There’s always such creativity to both the stories Rian Johnson tells and the way Rian Johnson tells them. He proofs that again here with his greatest feat yet. Looper is a masterpiece through and through.

Grade: A+