"Looper"

For someone who thinks Bruce Willis' "Twelve Monkeys'' is the defining time-travel flick, it's irresistible to see him in another clever, careening tale of time-hopping. Joseph Gordon-Levitt wonderfully channels the younger Willis as a hit man whose latest assignment is to snuff his older self, in a perverse retirement system where the mob of the future eventually has its assassins kill off themselves. Writer-director Rian Johnson has concocted a rare thriller whose brains equal its action, telling the story with great style and provocative irony.

By AP Movie Writer David Germain.

Credit: Alan Markfield/TriStar Pictures