Mostly unlikeable, occasionally interesting thriller of very mixed messages

Rating: 6/10 (15 March 2016)

A guy takes an illicit drug because of its helpful effects, and risks continuing doing so even though EVERYBODY else around him doing the same is becoming disabled and dying. And guess what? He gets away with it, comes off it gently in time, continues to benefit long term and seems set fair to lead a really great life for ever and ever.
At my age I can fairly claim to be immune to that kind of message, but can we say with hand on heart that everybody else is? That's how we start and finish in describing Neil Burger's "Limitless", but we might also add in the way our hero (played well enough by Bradley Cooper) pays the price for his habit by getting mixed up with some very risky criminals, as well as with big-business type Carl Van Loon (whose name maybe says quite a bit, as this is a driven character for whom profit and takeovers are literally everything). The Van Loon character is played by Robert De Niro, who towers over this film, giving a hugely impressive and enjoyable portrayal (assuming of course that this is not just De Niro being De Niro).
This is a strange film for several more reasons. In the first place, it starts off using a storytelling technique that is increasingly abandoned as the story unfolds. This looks like it might endanger the film as a cohesive whole, but somehow does not do so - so a few points for that.
The other issue - in fact of key relevance - is that this is another of those "let's use 100% of our brains and not just 10 or 20% or whatever it is" films, yet one that has no sci fi pretensions whatever (hence some contrast with, say, "Lucy"). Ironically, this leaves us much more squarely with the film about the world of business and how drugs might help in that world that I described at the outset - a pretty dark and dubious concept in a piece of work that does have its better moments, even a few that are momentarily thought-provoking. But mostly it's just a kind of adventure thriller that raises questions other than the ones it perhaps intended to.