Youll be completely forgiven for not really knowing who Rian Johnson is at the moment, but give him a few more years. When his first feature film, Brick, a neo-noir story set in an American high school, it intrigued me and I went to see it thinking hey, it might be half decent. Brick was actually fully decent, better than decent, incredible in fact. And it starred, guess who, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the central role. Im always keen to discover who the next great Auteur is going to be and now that I look at Looper, Johnsons third foray into feature film (admittedly I havent seen his second, The Brothers Bloom, yet), Im starting to become convinced that its him. Both Looper and Brick play with noir elements (admittedly Brick more heavily), both are highly cerebral and extremely visual and both star Levitt in central roles. Theres a ways to go before we can stamp him as an Auteur, sure, but hes certainly making an excellent start. You can almost play connect the dots with Johnsons output to date, and I for one will hopefully be continuing to connect them well into his already burgeoning career.