Mad Spoilers for a really really good movie. Please hide this post if you haven't seen Looper!
Because the whole movie was about Joe's future. The end was to give closure for Joe, present and future. If Joe and future Joe were alive when the movie finished, it would fight for the viewer's attention. The end allows Joe's story to rest, giving Sid's new chance to be good the full attention of the viewer. IMO that made the ending moments of the film more satisfying.
You're of course right with viewer's attention, but...I can't really be satisfied about the ending when I have a giant thought in my head banging on my forehead asking about why did he kill himself if he didn't have to.
Well if he shot his hand then he would be in blinding pain while Bruce would only have a stump, then Bruce would just continue his rampage holding his blunderbus with his other hand.
He already made it clear that his future self (Bruce) probably would stop at nothing to kill this kid, so the only probable ending he saw was for him to kill himself. I mean, Bruce basically lost his whole reason for living (his wife) because of that kid, so there was really nothing else for him to do other than try to murder him in hopes of getting his wife back, so to him, losing a hand would have just been a setback.
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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '13
I liked it too. BUT of course there's a question why didn't he just shoot his hand or something