Again, like Chatroom, 2010, Limitless, 2011 seems to have powdered the faces of critics with mixed feelings! When making a movie about the actions of really smart people (The Social Network) or about a sophisticated concept (Inception), the writer is faced with two dilemmas:
First, is the writer typically intelligent enough to replicate the actions and abilities of a genius in a credible way? Even if there is a source material – in this case for Limitless 2011, Alan Glynn’s novel, The Dark Fields – is it equipped with a clear understanding of the actions of the genius or the concept?
Secondly, how much brainpower does the writer want the audience, intelligent or not, to expend in order to be entertained over popcorn for two and a half hours?
And the result can be pretty maddening and oftentimes silly. Most movies are unable to effectively present a protagonist or a concept that is as brilliant as we are told it is. Whether this is a problem with the source material or an artifact of the screenplay, in my opinion, is irrelevant.
Only a handful of films excel at this task – Limitless, 2011 is one of them!
Limitless is a Wall Street synthesis of a superhero on acid! Neil Burger’s flashy visual style and dazzling CGI-enhanced tracking shots is worth every penny of the monetary-strobe-like disorientation that accompanies the acid.
A man gets hooked on a new designer drug (NZT) – a little clear tablet. By popping it once a day, it allows him, to access 100 percent of his brain, instead of the less than 1 percent that’s popularly believed that we use. Almost overnight, Eddie (Bradley Cooper) goes from being a scruffy, mumbling novelist schlep with writer’s block and a girlfriend (Abbie Cornish) who has just dumped him, to a multilingual motor-mouth, with a successful stock portfolio, a photographic memory, the martial-arts moves of Jason Bourne and the pick of every sexy woman in New York City – the King!
However, Eddie Mora still remained essentially himself before and after. All that changed was his ability to recall everything he ever saw or heard, and clipped these pieces of information together in a neat, clear and constructive way for his benefit, on Wall Street in particular!
Now, what if most of what he ever saw or heard about Wall Street was wrong? Then I guess whatever he pieces together would be detrimental – at least that’s what I thought. But here’s where the film becomes brilliant. Of the people that are known to be taking the tablet, for example, Eddies ex brother-in-law, only Eddie was capable of transforming the information with high fidelity into something concise and constructive. NZT was like a pearl cast before swine and only Eddie, of course because of his ‘high IQ’, could fully unleash its potential!
It will be a shame to say the movie sidestepped the importance of intelligence and the ability to reason. What NZT does is only to add 100% memory to whatever you already have. So if you were stupid, you don’t become smart on NZT, you just become stupider!
Like most movies however, Limitless falls prey to the gender mishap in its portrayal of women. Lindy (Abbie Cornish) the successful young professional woman who dumps Eddie as a loser, only falls for him all over again when he becomes a winner! This may not have been sneaky on her part perhaps, but as the movie portrayed, she had every reason to dump the original Eddie and many good ones to return – the quintessential gold-digger.
Overall the premise is intriguing as the twists and turns set out to explore what changes a pill like NZT might wreak on the poor if it fell in the hands of the rich ($800 per tablet). Other critics might disagree with the level of brilliance I see in the screenplay and direction, but if anything remains unarguable about Limitless, is that, it uses 100 percent of its brainpower to make the story clear and accessible so you don’t have to be google-ing over popcorn whose dream this might yet be and what it might yet mean!
Director: Neil Burger
Writers: Leslie Dixon (screenplay), Alan Glynn (novel)
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Anna Friel and Abbie Cornish
Release Date: March 18, 2011
I love this movie! Well made.