DAVID GREENE, HOST: Back in 2005, writer-director Rian Johnson was the talk of Sundance with his debut feature, "Brick." Now he's the talk of Hollywood with his new sci-fi epic, "Looper." Film critic Kenneth Turan has this review.</s>KENNETH TURAN: "Looper" is wild and crazy but it wears its crazy lightly, like it's no big deal. The year is 2044 and Joe, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is employed as a looper, a profession that takes some explaining.</s>KENNETH TURAN: One of the quirks of the looping profession is that at some point you will end up shooting the future version of yourself, a situation called closing your loop. If you don't pull the trigger, if you let your loop run, you will be in for a world of trouble - which is exactly what happens here.</s>KENNETH TURAN: Joe comes face-to-face with his future self, played by Bruce Willis. Though they are technically the same man, the difference in age means that Joe and his older self have different dreams, different goals for their lives. They do not get along.</s>KENNETH TURAN: "Looper's" plot is way more complicated than you can imagine. It's all about uncertainty, and the delicious sense that we're in only partially chartered territory. There's also a surprising ruthlessness to the narrative, the sense of a story that has the nerve to play by its own rules.</s>KENNETH TURAN: Not to be missed is Jeff Daniels, who gives an electric performance as Abe, a man from the future fed up with living in the past. Abe casts a disparaging eye on Joe's style of dress and tells him, the movies you are dressing like are just copying other movies.</s>KENNETH TURAN: "Looper" doesn't feel like it's copying anything at all.</s>DAVID GREENE, HOST: Film critic Kenneth Turan, he reviews movies for MORNING EDITION and for the Los Angeles Times.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis star as the present and future versions of a skilled assassin in Rian Johnson's mind-bending thriller Looper. Not to be missed is Jeff Daniels, who gives an electric performance as Abe, a man from the future fed up with living in the past