Review of Limitless (2011) by Gimly M — 25 Feb 2015

Based on the novel The Dark Fields by Alan Gynn, the film is about desperate, depressed and dumped amateur writer Eddie Morra (Eddie Spinola in the book) who is played by Bradley Cooper (above). I think Bradley Cooper is fantastic, and his presence even managed to convince me to watch American Comedy (which as a general rule I disdain); The Hangover.

Eddie is given a drug by his ex-wife's brother (so naturally they're great friends =|). He tells Eddie that the drug is FDA approved, and that it will help him access the full potential of his mind, but that's really all the info he gets, then naturally, Eddie decides to take the strange clear pill.

So, as you can see, there's already already a couple of dodgy odds and ends, (although I was glad to hear that the drug was in actual fact not legal, and the dealer was just lying, made the fact that not every single person on the planet was using it more viable). But that's just the first couple of minutes, and afterwards it doesn't really have that much more getting in the way of its suspension of disbelief.

But enough about the story, you can go anywhere and read what the movie is about, a blurb on the back of your DVD is no more or less likely to give you a quick plausibly true account of what happens in a movie than some reviewer on the web, there's already plenty of those going around. I much prefer to tell my readers what the movie IS. Why am I qualified to do this? I'm not, I just want to.

To put it simply, it's not a deep movie. It makes you think, sure, but the plot holes and poorly written characters are not terribly entrancing. Thankfully, the actors pick up the slack, and basically everybody was worth watching in the latter half of the film. Not to mention the fact that the cinematography was incredible! Find the DoP from this film and put him in charge of like, everything, ever. Too be far I'm sure a lot of it was Neil Burger's doing too. Honestly, forget everything, even if you hate action, drugs, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro (who's a very minor goodguy-come-badguy, don't believe the trailer), The Dark Fields, techno-thriller and movies in general, I cannot recommend this film enough, simply for the art direction. Much of how I rate this film will be attributed solely to that. Although, it is important to note that I watched Limitless in a theatre, whereas I'm usually a DVD guy, and films are always more impressive on the Silver Screen, so after a second watch, I may or may not appreciate it less, for now though, my score still stands.

As an interesting final note to leave you with, the effects of the drug were remarkably realistic. Anything you'd like to share with us, Mr. Burger?

86%.

-Gimly.