There’s no shortage of movies starring pill’s as the protagonist. One that readily springs to mind is the kiddie friendly coloured pills from The Matrix.
The pill’s here though, are a different beast, although not entirely different. MDT crash lands in Eddie Morra’s (Bradley Cooper) life when he’s close to rock bottom. An aspiring writer, who has written nothing, has a chance meeting with an ex-brother in law that changes his life forever. MDT gives super human powers. Essentially it allows the user to utilise 100% of their brain, as opposed to the usual 20%. In turn, this gives Eddie a little bit of a head start on all things financial, as he start’s making more than a few quid on stocks. Eventually he comes to the attention of Carl Van Loon (De Niro) (Mr Financial guru Big Shot) and they partake on making even more moolah. Couple this up with an increasing addiction to MDT, a Russian gangster straight out of Grand Theft Auto, a few corporate hi-jinks and a love interest and you have the makings of a watchable, albeit scattered movie.
Neil Burger (The Illusionist) is at the helm here and keeps the movie plodding along at a fair old pace, although it seems far longer than it’s 105 minute running time. And that’s where the scattering comes into play. Limitless, to me at least, seems to have a great, very intelligent idea. And the movie itself tries to be something more than it’s not. Maybe if it had a longer running time it could have developed the large amount of ideas and sub-plots it hurtles at the screen. While not enough to bring the whole thing crashing down, it is a noticeable fault. There are a few nice visual treats here and the performances from Bradley Cooper cements him as a new leading man. De Niro dial’s in his smallish part and the rest of the cast are believable enough.
Overall, Limitless isn’t the worst movie you’ll see this year and at times it’s quite entertaining. But it needs to make up it’s mind as to what it’s trying to be. Maybe a longer director’s cut could be in the offing? That said, there’s only so much pill popping, private jets and Maserati’s one can take!
