Time travel movies tend to come in two varieties. There's the lighthearted Back to the Future-esque fare in which convoluted time-travel logic is used to the film's own advantage. Then there's the darker Terminator-type, the movies that disguise their broken time travel logic in the form of a deeper story.

Looper is the first film I've seen that manages to use time travel to both ends. It doesn't hide from the logic; it takes full advantage and employs it with originality and sincerity. At the same time, it maintains a strong story with which the sci-fi elements create a mostly even balance.

Writer/director Rian Johnson has crafted a unique action thriller, compelling for the most part but not without its flaws. For example, the movie's mid-section almost seems to be a bridge leveled from a Hallmark Channel movie and roughly dropped in place of what should have been Looper's second act. By the end of the movie it makes a bit more sense, but for a while it looked like Johnson became uncertain whether he was directing Looper or a made-for-television remake of The Omen.

The plot centers around a "looper" agent named Joe, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The loopers are a select group of deadly assassins working for a crime syndicate whose base exists 30 years in the future. It is apparently rather difficult to discard of bodies in the future, therefore the syndicate's victims are sent-alive and well-30 years into the past. Here the loopers immediately gun the time travellers down, after which they claim from their bodies a nice fortune in silver bars. The catch is that no loose ends can be left, and the loopers must always "close the loop." In other words, the loopers are tasked with killing their future selves, with the knowledge that they'll get a hefty pay day and an enjoyable 30 years until they're greeted by a silver bullet from the past. This provides the ground for the coming plot, which sees Joe's future self, played by Bruce Willis, returning to the past to face assassination by past Joe. Unfortunately for young Joe, his elder has a master plan-one that will spare himself from death and potentially undo the future he faces.

Never before have I seen sheer exposition play so fascinating on film. This includes a wonderfully directed sequence that demonstrates the movie's masterful usage of time travel. The future version of a minor character is forced to face the consequences of escaping from his self-assassinator. He experiences his own body being dismantled from the past as we witness the gruesome details through clever cross-cutting between both versions of himself. It's among the most creative usages of time travel ever put to film-the R-rated version of the dance sequence from Back to the Future.

Unfortunately, the basics of this world are so compelling that by the time the plot rolls along it's actually less interesting than the set-up. About halfway through the film the younger Joe finds himself holed up in a farm in the middle of nowhere, owned by a headstrong single mom named Sarah (Emily Blunt) who is determined to protect her young son, Cid (Pierce Gagnon), from the carnage of future Joe.

This is where the film's problems lie. The switch in focus from the looper syndicate to the child's personal story is rather abrupt. It segues into a (only somewhat believable) fusion between family melodrama and B-movie horror flick. Some sequences feature Cid becoming overly enraged and growing facial expressions akin to Oscar the Grouch.

He also delivers complex dialogue that no five-year-old kid would comprehend unless his Dr. Seuss books were replaced with the complete collection of William Faulkner. The editing of these scenes is cheesy, and again, B-movie-ish. Cid's role does ultimately bring the movie full circle, it just wasn't handled with as much subtlety as it could have been.

Helping the movie along is impeccable acting from the leads. Gordon-Levitt does an uncanny Bruce Willis impression, nailing the actor's squinty-eyed intensity and effortlessly reproducing his mannerisms. Even the way he speaks out of the corner of his mouth and elevates his vocal pitch is spot-on.

Unfortunately, he also wears iffy prosthetic makeup that attempts to blend his facial features with Willis'. I assume this was done to make the aging process look more convincing, but Gordon-Levitt's acting chops alone would have been enough. Willis, for his part, does a fine job as future Joe, acting every bit Gordon-Levitt's battle-scarred elder, hell-bent on a single, unwavering purpose.

Also of note is Blunt, who deftly portrays a limited strength, a portrait of a mother without a clear idea of how to help her child. And Jeff Daniels amusingly oils up the screen as the slimy present-day leader of the looper syndicate.

These performances grip us even as the movie's genre appears to waver. But the film satisfactorily builds to an impressive conclusion, and restores some of the ingenuity present in the film's first half. I wouldn't exactly call the finale mind-blowing, but it certainly throws the viewer for a loop.

My take-away from Looper is a brilliant story with a somewhat flawed execution. Stellar performances and possibly the most ingenious use of time travel ever put to film create a winning formula. Johnson knows how to craft a psychological thriller with enough resources to impress the cerebral audience, yet a proper amount of action interludes to appease the adrenaline junkies.

I'll give Johnson the benefit of the doubt and say that even the film's dips are only in service of its spikes, balancing the thrills with moments of humanity. Johnson's plot loops around a few times, sometimes in unclear directions, but always with an end in sight. And he closes the loop with the impact of a bullet.
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