In a 2012 interview with Yahoo! Movies, Johnson was asked to discuss which films, beyond “12 Monkeys” and “Blade Runner,” influenced the writing of “Looper.” According to the filmmaker:
“‘Witness’ was a big one. When I was writing the back half of the script, I looked at the way that they sustain the tension in that movie even when they’re out on the farm. That’s a brilliant, brilliant film. I owe quite a bit to that movie, probably more so than any of the sci-fi movies you’ve mentioned.”
Weir’s film, which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (shared by Earl W. Wallace, William Kelley and Pamela Wallace), manages to keep the audience on the edge of its seat even as it explores the foreign-to-Ford social mores of the Amish community that is harboring him. There are a lot more moving pieces plot-wise in Johnson’s film, but while it doesn’t slow down quite to the degree “Witness” does, it takes an unusual amount of time to make sure Blunt’s character gets fully fleshed out.
This is a narrative risk, but Johnson never loses our engagement. The result is a much richer movie, emotionally and thematically, than you typically get from a studio sci-fi action effort. The film industry is riddled with screenwriters eager to emulate “Die Hard.” We could use more looking to make their “Witness.”
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