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Limitless

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro
Directed by: Neil Burger
Screenplay by: Leslie Dixon

     What if a pill could unlock your true potential?  What if you could access 100% of your brain power?  Would you do it?  Would you do it even with the potential risks associated with taking it?
     The movie opens with writer Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) standing at the top of a building just outside of his condo in New York about to jump off.  Two questions already arise.  Why is he considering jumping off and how did he get to this point?
     From that point forward, most of the movie is a flashback from Morra's point of view.  When he finds an old friend while walking down the street one day, he is offered a top secret pill whose effects have not exactly been tested although it is known what the pill does.  It unlocks your inner potential until you stop taking it, and then you get really sick and eventually die.  Morra begins to become more efficient at what he does, and finishes his entire novel in a matter of days.  Then he begins to play the stock markets and makes millions within weeks.  Everyone's interested in how he's doing it, especially Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro).
      Van Loon takes Morra under his wing and makes Morra his personal assistant with working out a merger between two major companies.  With all of the genius inside Morra emerging, he begins to make millions, becomes extremely successful, and a suspect in a murder case.  There's one big problem facing Morra.  What happens when he runs out of the pills?
      The acting is no surprise.  It's excellent as always with actors like Cooper and De Niro who almost never fail to impress an audience.  Both deliver excellent performances, Cooper as the drugged out Morra and De Niro as the top executive who wants to really know what's going on with Morra.
      What's cool is the fact that the whole movie is from Morra's perspective.  The scene has a shade of blue tint whenever Morra's not on the drug and has a yellow tint whenever he's on it.  The scenes are also paced differently depending on whether or not he is on the drug.  The cinematography is quite awesome in Limitless.  My favorite parts are the constant zooms.  Some parts, especially like the opening are constant zoom ins.  The camera seems to be zooming in on one point that is never reached.  It's like we are actually walking down the street through Morra's perspective.
      There are a few plot holes in the story, and they're never filled.  For one, what happens to him after he's accused of murder?  How does he keep getting his supplies of the pill once it seems that he's run out?  Does his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) ever get addicted?  These are scenes that we see once, but they're never explained or seen again.
      Limitless is probably the best anti-drug commercial we'll see for a long time.  It's worth watching if you want to see the effects of drugs on someone.  There's a valuable lesson to be learned as well, if it's not FDA approved, you probably don't want to use it.
I'm giving this one a B.

Comments

  1. Perfect review...We just saw it the other night & you were exactly right. I thought it was a great premise but too many plot holes. Too many unanswered questions.
    Happy Holidays & Mazel Tov on Hofstra!
    Best,
    -Julie

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