After his modern noir debut Brick, and his wildly different heist follow-up The Brothers Bloom, writer/director Rian Johnson is switching up genres again with his third feature, Looper. The time travel film stars Bruce Willis (as an older version of Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s character), Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels and Piper Perabo. The high-concept story follows “hitmen whose victims are sent back in time from the future to be executed. The Loopers bump them off in the present, so there is no trace of a crime in the future.”
We now have the very first official still featuring a gun-toting Willis from Empire and it looks to be something out of a Die Hard film or The Expendables. Fear not though, with Johnson behind the camera (and pen), this is sure to be a mind-churning exercise in entertainment. For further explanation check our Empire’s quote below.
Set in the near future, when time-travel is possible but very, very illegal, Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, reteaming with his Brick director, as Joe, a sharp, savvy hitman .
But Joe is no ordinary hitman. The hooded, bound victims he kills are sent back in time from 30 years in the future: he shoots them with a blunderbuss, burns the bodies, and all trace of the crime disappears. Life is pretty good for Joe, until one day a body arrives without a hood: it’s his future self, played by Willis. And he’s not going down without a fight…
This might sound like a spoiler but it’s just the start of a dazzling, Inception-style thrill ride which will please fans of the hardboiled Brick and surprise admirers of the romantic Brothers Bloom.
Looper will see a release in 2012.
What do you think of the first still? Not what you expected?