The ever-evolving, eclectic and up-and-coming auteur Rian Johnson is set to expand his portfolio once again by bringing his unique point of view to the action genre. Johnson is set to direct the time-travel thriller “Looper,” from his own original script. He is teaming up with producer Ram Bergman, who produced his previous two films, “Brick” and the recent “The Brothers Bloom,” which screened at this years Toronto Films Festival and received strong word of mouth as well a December release date (but a film we didn’t particularly like as it was whimsically overwrought).
“Looper” will follow two modern day hit men whose victims are sent to them from a futuristic world. On paper it sounds like an action movie parody, but Johnson is known for using predisposed expectations to his advantage. With “Brick” he used a tired film-noir story, but turned it on its head by setting it in a modern day southern California high school, and with his recent film, “The Brothers Bloom” he used the classic conventions of old conman stories to create something new and all together different. Assuming he can avoid the hyper-stylized vision that seeped into ‘Bloom’ and has plagued Wes Anderson’s later work, we wouldn’t be surprised if Johnson could turn it into a decent and interest project. But than again, “The Brothers Bloom” had its flaws. Maybe he can split the difference.
