If you have seen the movie “Looper”, and aren’t quite sure what was going on, perhaps this summary will help to make some sense of it.  Some viewers have criticized it for having too many holes in the plot.  This may be true, but part of the intrigue in watching “Looper” is the challenge of tracking what is going on and trying to figure out, how characters and events relate to each other.  I am rather happy with my synopsis but open to remarks, so if you have already seen the movie, read this and let me know if it sounds about right, or not.  If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t mind a spoiler, I also recommend my summary.

“Looper”, extremely violent, is nonetheless an enlightening film of self- discovery and redemption. The excessive depiction of violent acts and pervasive drug addiction which keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, is necessary for transmitting the ultimate message that mankind must put an end to destruction and replace it with love, kindness and the preservation of innocence. The main character, Joe, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is a heartless killer  – a looper, working for an evil leader in control of sending his foes back from the future to be assassinated by his entourage of hired murderers. Joe, like his friend Seth, fails to carry out his duty when he is faced with assassinating himself as he emerges out the ground from the future of 30 years later.  In botching his own assassination, Joe, and his future self, played by Bruce Willis, become fugitives running from the thugs controlled by the leader of the Ring.  When Joe realizes that his older self is out to destroy three young boys born on the same day in the same hospital because one of them could grow up to be the evil Rainmaker, he schemes to thwart the killing of one of these boys.

Bruce Willis, as Joe, tries to prevent the horror facing the future, which would be committed by the little boy Sid, if he’s allowed to grow into being the ultimate evil force in the world. In the final scene he is about to shoot the child’s caregiver, a beautiful intelligent blonde, who is blocking the boy with her body, so he can escape into the sugar stocks.  The younger Joe, arriving at the scene, envisions his older self Willis, shooting the blonde, who is really the sister of the boys mother, and sees the little boy in the future as he escapes through the fields and rides on a train, free to grow up to be a terrorist and assassinator. Instead of shooting his future persona, the younger Joe turns the gun on himself in order to break the vicious cycle and prevent the evil of the future from occurring.  Upon killing himself, the older Joe played by Willis, disappears into thin air and the young woman and the boy are saved. In his sacrifice, evil is restored by goodness and the cycle of destruction ends.  Joe, the heartless killer, in spirit, saves himself from committing future evil deeds and reinstates innocence embodied in the little boy.  For the audience, especially for the girls, he becomes a savior and hero to humanity.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives an Academy Award winning performance.  The humorous and playful actor that we know from Saturday Night Live, shows he is able to portray the evil villain and the loving nature of Levitt-Gordon’s character in 50/50 is again unveiled when Joe finds his true self in “Looper”.