What would you do if a pill could help you achieve your wildest dreams?
In "Limitless," this is the question confronting Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), a washed−up writer who stumbles upon the designer pharmaceutical NZT and finds that taking the pill instantly banishes his shyness, allows him to draw on every memory he's ever made and quickly launches him to the top of Wall Street.
Morra is living a life of personal disappointment in New York City when the audience meets him. After getting dumped by his unimpressed girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish), Eddie is wandering home when he has a chance encounter with Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), the brother of his ex−wife, Melissa (Anna Friel).
Drug−dealing Vernon manages to get Eddie's attention long enough to show him his new product: a cutting−edge pharmaceutical called NZT. The drug's manufacturers claim that humans only use around 20 percent of their brains and that NZT will activate the other 80 percent.
After a series of coincidental incidents leave Eddie with all of Vernon's NZT stash, he quickly takes advantage of his extraordinary increase in focus and motivation to learn an incredible array of skills, rekindle his relationship with Lindy and mastermind the stock market, while working for one of the most powerful men in the world, Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro). Eddie's new powers come at steep cost, however, as he soon comes to realize.
Despite being a movie whose primary premise is that of a mind−altered slacker fleeing from a power−hungry band of gangsters, "Limitless" does impressively well as a film. This success is, in no small part, due to Cooper's acting in the lead role. From his first, heavily foreshadowing lines of the movie, ("Why is it that, the moment your life exceeds your wildest dreams, the knife appears at your back?"), Cooper manages to seem relatable, witty and incredibly human as his character evolves and develops throughout the movie's ongoing voiceovers.
An added pleasant surprise in "Limitless" is the soundtrack. Though a large portion of action and science−fiction movies tend to rely predictably on some form of industrial electronic or house music, the soundtrack in "Limitless" makes the characters seem somehow more relatable and more sincere with its use of The Black Keys and its warm, DeVotchKa−like electronica sound. The music of "Limitless" avoids some of the hyped−up neuroticism that has long lingered around psychological sci−fi classics like "A Scanner Darkly"(2006) and "Minority Report"(2002) and manages to make Morra a more emotionally appealing character.
This character−empathy is crucial, as without it, the movie would certainly grate on the audience's nerves. The entire movie is narrated by Eddie, and one frequently sees the world literally through his eyes, with clever cinematography succeeding in letting the viewer feel unnerved, anxious or euphoric.
One might even argue that "Limitless" focuses too much on Eddie at the exclusion of other characters. This exclusive focus, however, is necessary for the viewer to be drawn into Eddie's world, and drawn in they are.
Arguably the most engaging scene in the entire film unfolds when Eddie first takes NZT. Shot from Eddie's perspective, the viewer can practically feel his euphoric, genius rush of invincibility and feel his thrill of success as he navigates a prickly social situation. The cinematography also mirrors this mental transition, as the scene's colors change from muted grays to warm, gold−based tones.
In his discovery of NZT's powers, Eddie thinks mostly of his new mental agility, as does the viewer. He is fascinated when he discovers his new productivity and is understandably horrified when he starts to realize the side effects of the relatively untested NZT: memory lapses and mania when he is on the drug, then nausea and perpetual attention deficit if he stops taking his ever−increasing daily dose. The viewer's full involvement is necessary to understand the psychological nuances of Eddie's increasing fear as a combination of the drug's side effects, an abstract and incredibly dangerous conglomeration of hit men and the rising pressures of his new high−flying careers start to take their toll on Eddie's well−being.
Indeed, "Limitless" goes so far as to probe a few philosophical questions that haunt our modern society: How far does one have to go to get ahead? Is the game ever completely honest in high profile, lucrative careers? Though a fair amount of the science in "Limitless" is dubious at best, the movie certainly succeeds in conveying a relevant, thought−provoking message to its audience while garnering plenty of heart−pounding and laughs along the way.
