What if you had access to the eighty percent of your brain that goes "unused?" That is the concept behind the 2011 film Limitless. An experimental drug (NZT) provides mental clarity, allowing your synapses to fire at an incredible rate, connecting even the remotest of memories into an organized set of memories. Patterns become clearer, your focus is acute and your abilities become, well...limitless.
The bad news? The drug only lasts twenty-four hours per dose. More bad news? There isn't any more of the drug. If that weren't enough, there is also the issue of side effects. The vomiting and nausea might be tolerable. But the tumors and death are kind of final. When Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is introduced to NZT, it changes his life. After cleaning his bachelor pad, he turns to his unfinished book (or, more accurately, his unstarted book). He finishes the entire work in four days. Morra stumbles on the stash of NZT that his former brother-in-law hid beneath his stove before he was murdered. It seems that NZT is worth killing for, because bodies start dropping from the outset.
Morra carefully guards his NZT stash while rekindling his relationship with his former girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) and staking out his future in the stock market. His market prowess leads him into the fold of super-broker Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro) who is impressed with Morra's incredible ability to find nuance in the markets. The relationship is predatory, with Van Loon using his young protege to broker his biggest deals. In the meantime, Morra must deal with a ruthless tail that has been following him, searching for his stash of NZT. He must also deal with a murder investigation (two actually), a pending merger and an underworld enforcer who has discovered the benefits of NZT.
Limitless is unique in many ways. The film creates limitations within the realm of unlimited abilities in order to create great suspense. However, there were some plot issues that bothered me. Among them were the side effects that initially affected our central character but then miraculously went away. While the feat might be explainable within the realm of possibilities created by the drug, it is never actually explored. That left me feeling that the writers took the easy way out to create a somewhat open ending (and possibly a sequel). The characters were interesting and engaging. I actually cared about the main character and some of the peple around him. The dialogue was rich and seemed well researched. Leslie Dixon (screenplay) and Alan Glynn (novel) have given us some solid meat to gnaw on.
I don't know if the lead role could have been cast any better than Cooper. His glass stare (probably enhanced by special effects) conveys the clarity extended by the NZT with conviction. Cooper made the transition from struggling writer to accomplished broker to Senatorial candidate with credibility. I believed the transition. De Niro was typical De Niro. Straight forward, deliberate and an incredible stage presence. I am not famliar with Cornish, who had a minor role, but I liked what I saw. The cast was strong.
I enjoyed Limitless. It was an intriguing thriller in a long list of thrillers that arrived in 2011. 2011 seemed to be the year of the thriller. I would rank this one up there with Unknown, The Adjustment Bureau, Source Code, along with 2010's Inception. It was a great year for the genre. Limitless did have some issues in the plot, primarily with the lack of explanation regarding continuity of the drug side effects. With that said, the dialogue was brilliant, the performances convincing and the concept fresh. I was entertained the entire film. Worthy of 8/10. If you haven't seen it, rent it.
