LIMITLESS

“LIMITLESS” (Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro & Abbie Cornish)

Finally a film with a positive message for America – Do drugs! Do lots of them! Especially untested ones and you too can make it to the top of your field becoming wealthy beyond your wildest dreams!
Actually this was an entertaining tale, but yes, that IS the message it seems to be sending.
Bradley Cooper plays Eddie Morra, a struggling unknown writer to has received a rather large advance from his publisher even though Eddie has never had anything published...
Which let’s us know right from the git-go that this is a fantasy tale...
Not only has Eddie never been published, but he hasn’t even written one word of his manuscript before receiving this bonus – How in the hell did he sell THAT idea?
I’ve written three full-length novels and I can’t get agents or publishers to even look at what I’ve written, let alone advance me any bread to write something from scratch!
OK, so that aspect of the film made me bitter...

But the rest of the story unfolds in a way that keeps you interested in Eddie’s sudden mercurial rise to the top despite the fact that he’s doing it while taking a drug that will kill him if he stops taking it - & looks like it will do that eventually if he continues popping the pills like peanuts to avoid the D-T’s as well.

Eddie’s ex-brother-in-law hands him an experimental drug called NZT (“FDA approved,” Vernon tells Eddie, “though it’s not on the market yet.”
NZT supposedly allows the user to expand the ability to use one’s entire brain instead of just the 20% most of us can access. Eddie remembers everything that’s ever entered his head since birth and goes from a disheveled looking loser into a sharp dressed well-groomed business genius in just a matter of weeks.
The downside – well, when Eddie tells Vernon, “You told me this was FDA approved!” Vernon chuckles, “And you believed me?” – so Eddie is addicted to a drug that he discovers will kill him if he stops taking it or takes too many doses too often.

Throw in a Russian mobster (Andrew Howard) that keeps shaking Eddie down for more NZT and Robert De Niro as Eddie’s new mentor and Eddie finds himself keeping dangerous company along with his ‘drug problem’.
Abbie Cornish is quite cute as Eddie’s girlfriend that dumped him when he was a useless writer but finds the ‘genius’ Eddie irresistible – Until his unscrupulous lifestyle puts her in danger and her only hope to survive is to start taking NZT herself.

I liked this movie despite being an anti-drug person. Not that I care if you do them, I just wish I didn’t have to take as many pain pills as I do in order to get through my job.
I didn’t care for the ending – but on the other hand, it didn’t end the way I expected it, and I always appreciate a twist of that sort – at least it’s original...