A wasted opportunity of a film that doesn't develop the right way

Rating: 4/10 (9 April 2011)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Scruffy looking out of work writer Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) takes his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) giving him the boot as the final straw in his life heading down the pan. Just when he thinks things can't get any worse, his old brother in law hands him a new designer drug that allegedly has the power to enhance his abilities to their fullest. Regarding it cynically at first, Eddie takes it and finds it to be as true as he was told it was. Living his life to the max, Eddie sees a chance to commercialise on his discovery with Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro) a powerful businessman who sees potential. But when the not so lovely side effects kick in, Eddie finds his world thrust into turmoil.
Hollywood is a place where original ideas are running increasingly scarce in the recession era, where only re-makes and sequels to age old franchise films appear to be springing up. So it's always encouraging, in one way or another, for a film like Limitless to spring up, with producers taking a gamble on a new idea that could work wonders. So it's all the more upsetting when the result is something so far fetched, confused and implausible, a film that saunters around without much direction and fails to develop into a film as a whole. It's slick and glossy enough, and the zooming camera moments would give a ride at Alton Towers a run for it's money. But there's really not much more to it than this, with give or take lead performances from Cooper and De Niro, who takes an eternity to make his presence in the film but still fails to give it any extra weight or gravitas, and an enhanced sense that it's on to something special when really it's anything but. **