Director: Neil Burger
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish, Anna Friel, Johnny Whitworth, Andrew Howard, Tomas Arana
Plot: Writer Eddie Mora (Cooper) discovers a top-secret drug which bestows him with super human abilities. After making considerable ground in the stock market he is asked to work for powerful businessman Carl Van Loon (De Niro), but the drug begins to have a strange effect on him.
A drug that let's you use 100% of your brain. Wow. The endless possibilities or is it 'Limitless'? Apparently not because there was definitely a limit on how much fun I had watching this. There was significant buzz surrounding this film on its release and with a unique plot and interesting style it seemed justified. However there was something about this film that just didn't quite connect with me.
I was under the impression that 'Limitless' would be a cool stylish thriller and while it was certainly stylish it wasn't quite as cool as it thought it was. The main problem for me was that underneath the all the flashy camera tricks there wasn't really anything there. Neil Burger has a certain style that works brilliantly on a purely visual level with many sequences looking absolutely fantastic and at times they do actually further the story, but when the story is a deeply uninteresting one it doesn't really matter.
So Eddie Mora gets a drug called NXT that enhances the usage of his brain to genius levels and what does he do - get involved in the stock market. Zzzzzzzzzz. These were by far the dullest and least interesting scenes as we are watching Bradley Cooper do errrrrm well something to do with stocks - the movie never really says what. But I suppose all that matters is that he makes millions and is picked up by Carl Van Loon and his business. This is where I thought the film would pick up but nope there was then some more business jargon about merger or energy or some other big corporation. To be honest this film was sending me to sleep in these scenes and I simply didn't care.
What could have been more interesting were two murder mysteries that Eddie becomes embroiled in, but no they are barley touched upon. The first murder, which Eddie reports, is hardly mentioned after it happens with the detective asking him one question and then the second murder isn't brought up again and I'm sure it was left unresolved, but I can't be certain. These should have been explored so much more and would have upped the stakes considerably more than will Cooper be able to help De Niro merge his company. Of course this isn't the main plot, but it is a major part and takes up considerable time which moves soooooo slowly.
This middle act of this film is so slow and bogged down with boring financial talk that I was praying that it would pick up at the end and to a certain extent it did. When Eddie is pursued by mafia loan shark Gennady (Howard) that demands NXT off him after getting a taste himself there is a definite raise in stakes because he is scary and serious threat and one that gives a much needed boost to the film. The resolution to the movie is something of an anti-climax and doesn't feel particularly eventful taking into account the intense sequences that came before it.
'Limitless' was very much a mixed bag for me as there are elements that I really enjoyed. Burger's camerawork in many sequences like Cooper's brain fast forwarding and skitting through New York which is an incredible scene and I loved Mora remembering Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali's fighting style and then replicating it when he is being mugged. Cooper himself is a likable lead and De Niro classes up the scenes he is in. Abbie Cornish as Mora's ex-girlfriend is given little to do bar one chase scene, but does well in a small role. And it wasn't so much the personalities of the characters I disliked, but more what they were doing which at times was just dull.
When someone has the brain power to do anything they want I want to see something cool and exciting, not 'Wall Street 3'. A few scenes where Mora drives a Maserati round sun soaked European roads and gets any girl he wants are glimpses of this and it feels like a James Bond film. I wanted more of that not New York offices. Some camera shots from Mora's point of view are actually really exhilarating as we see the pace at which his mind is working. His apartment raining letters and changing into a trading board are also quite cool special effect scenes that come when Mora first tries NXT.
'Limitless' just wasn't for me. This review may sound like I'm complaining that they didn't make the film I wanted to see because in a way I am. I feel it was a missed opportunity to do something more memorable because with a title 'Limitless' I was expecting him to accomplish things slightly more interesting and something Charlie Sheen didn't do in 'Wall Street'. I'm sure this film has it fans but I'm slightly disappointed that I'm not one of them.
Rating:
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