Something quite different, making your brain work to 100% of its capacity.

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2011)

When you have seen thousands of movies, as I have, you delight in something almost completely new, a concept that has not been explored before. This movie has that and I delighted in watching where it went.
Bradley Cooper is Eddie Morra, a writer who can't quite seem to write anything, almost a slacker with his disheveled look. His live-in girlfriend, Abbie Cornish as Lindy, packs up and leaves early in this story, tired of Eddie's lack of focus and achievement.
It is a good time to mention also that Eddie had actually been married, for a very short time, to Anna Friel as Melissa. This becomes important as it relates to what happens next.
Eddie quite by accident happens to run into his ex-wife's brother, whom he has not seen in a few years. They talk over a drink and Eddie is given a small, clear pill, told to try it, he will be amazed. When he does, back in his apartment, he really is amazed, he suddenly sees everything clearly, is able to write an interesting first chapter in just a few minutes, and quickly cleans up his apartment. He is a changed man. The little pill wakes up all of his brainpower, he has goals and ambition, and can make analyses that no others can. He can pick up girls, sway others in arguments, quickly learn music and foreign languages, remember details from his past, and quickly become wealthy in the stock market, even though he had no prior training.
So what is a man to do in this situation? Say, "That was fun, now back to my usual drab life?" Not likely, and that really is what the rest of the movie is about.
Another key character is Robert De Niro as Carl Van Loon, a wealthy business man that Eddie gets involved with.
Good, interesting movie. My wife and I enjoyed it, just long enough at 1 hour and 40 minutes. We saw the "alternate ending" on the DVD and actually liked it a bit better.
SPOILERS: Eddie has to have more of the mysterious drug. When he goes to visit the ex-brother'n law, then goes out to fetch lunch and dry cleaning, he returns to find the man dead and the apartment ransacked. Eddie calls the police, and before they arrive he finds what the crooks couldn't, the stash of pills and quite a chunk of $$ money. So Eddie takes that for himself just before the cops get there. With the stash of pills Eddie goes on a roll, successful as he never had dreamed. But he soon finds it comes with a great price, it will eventually kill him as it has others. But in the end, he promises that with the 100% brain power he will use it to perfect the drug so that it will have the benefits without the dangers. Bradley Cooper is very good in the role.