What a vastly over rated stinker !!!

Rating: 5/10 (4 April 2013)

This must be like one of the most ridiculous films I have seen with gaping plot holes, suspension of belief and all notwithstandingI can understand that scriptwriters have to take liberties with the script to get the film going, set the pace right, make the story interesting and so onbut there is a limit and frankly this steaming pile of dog-turd strained my credulity
Unlike low-budget, 'leave-your-brain-at-home', C-grade flicks which you watch with low expectations, this film has no such excuse. The fact that this is a mega budget movie with big movie stars (Bradley Cooper, for god's sake) and has a 71% rating on rotten tomatoes seriously leads me to question the direction in which Hollywood movies are headed
This is a supposedly intelligent movie with novel and interesting premisea super drug which enhances the mental abilities of anybody who pops itsounds good??? Let's talk about the most stupid plot holes which I have arranged in descending order (most stupid coming first and so on)
1) The whole point of the drug is that whoever stops taking it falls sick and eventually dies, which is presumably the reason the drug dealer himself does not take it and become a business tycoon, president or somebodyso much is made out of its side effects throughout the filmhowever at the end of the movie, our hero has shrugged off the habit quite easily and still retained his mental super-abilitiesvery convenient huhand he explains this off in such a matter of fact manner, which De Niro accepts without question 2) The hero is not shown to be especially sharp or intelligentin fact he is a failure and a loser, who claims to be a writer, but has been unable to write a single wordyet he figures out something that the other users could not (including his extremely smart ex-wife)that if he eats on time, he can control the side effects of the drug 3) Bradley explains in a voice-over that he has forked out several million dollars for personal security – hiring professional bodyguards, renting a fortress like apartment with latest technology etc to keep away from the Russian thugsthe smug smile on his face (visible only to the audience) when he finalises the deal for the multimillion dollar apartment suggests that he has bested his opponentshowever in the climax of the movie, they bust in with utmost easeand before that they bump off his freakishly huge professional bodyguardswhat is the point of investing so much in personal security if a band of thugs can get too you without breaking a sweat??? 4) The thing about the hero sipping on the thug's blood to get back his super abilities really cracked me upcome onwhen you inject a drug, it gets diluted across your entire blood streamhow does he get the full benefit just by sipping on a little blood??? 5) Why would a guy with enhanced mental abilities, a super smart person borrow money from a dangerous gangster and then forget to pay it backand which retarded person grabs a pill from a relative stranger's hand and pops it without considering the potential harm??? Yet that is exactly what the Russian gangster does 6) At the end of the movie, De Niro (for some inexplicable reason) wants Cooper to work for him, presumably for his artificially enhanced mental abilitieshe reveals that he now owns the company that produced the drugbut in that case, why would Niro want to hire a guy who is a natural loser like Cooper and difficult to controlwon't a naturally genius and successful businessman like Niro have several super-smart guys already working for him, who can be enhanced with the drugor what is to prevent Niro from taking the drug himself and trying to become President of the United States??? His sudden and inexplicable switch from good guy to guy with negative shades, for no valid reasons, is difficult to digest 7) I figure that if I had a finite supply of the mind-enhancing drug, the thing to do would be to crank out a dozen or more best sellers before the supply runs outand then release them one at a timethis would rake in the millions by way of royalties and make me famousno super smart person would play the money market game to get rich as that would raise a thousand questions
I know that you are supposed to ignore small things and not think too much while watching a moviebut this entire film is an excellent example of deus ex machine (a plot device to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem suddenly and abruptly, with the contrived intervention of some new, unexpected eventfrequently used when the writer has "painted himself into a corner")the acting and other aspects are adequate, but I could not pay much attention to anything else as I was too incredulous with the ludicrous storyline