"God on crack"

Rating: 7/10 (9 August 2012)

The newest Neil Burger's flick (the director of 'The Illusionist') entering the cinemas under the cryptic title "Limitless" is a fast-paced action movie. Bradley Cooper (nowadays extremely sought-after in Hollywood), the typical handsome-looking guy, plays first fiddle in the aforesaid film. Somewhere in the background there is a place for Robert DeNiro himself; however, it's rather a bit part. Despite the recognizable and appreciated names in the cast, has "Limitless" got other assets capable of pulling in the audience? The whole ruse evokes around a specific kind of drug allowing its user to unleash the latent powers of one's brain. One day, Eddie Mora, a writer struggling with the writer's block, faces a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use a remedy in a form of a little, inconspicuous pellet. Eventually, the main protagonist reaches for the mysterious medicament, which causes a spate of unprecedented events. Thanks to this little handicap, Eddie boasts of 4-digit intelligence quotient, all of the mundane problems turn out to be insultingly simple. Foreign language learning, book writing, playing the market - for a genius, all of these activities are of no more effort than breathing. The real problem occurs when Mora starts to draw the excessive attention to himself and the number of pills required to work at the full blast declines dramatically with every day passing by...
'Limitless' is a motion picture based on an interesting idea. The main theme had great potential; unfortunately, it has been put into frames of a considerably shallow plot. As far as the script is concerned, the movie does not abound with surprising turns of events (although it starts with attention-gripping retrospective opening sequence). Moreover, the scenario is full of holes and striking disjunctions (if Eddie had 4-digit IQ, how come he mingled himself in such predicaments?). The schematic plot can easily be put aside due to the fact that the tempo of the course of events is maintained at appropriate level. During the screening of 'Limitless', the audience has no opportunity to yawn out of boredom. The story has been conducted with so dynamically that even sheer plot holes do not affect the reception of the movie. The director adjusts the tension very skilfully; therefore, the account of a drug-addict brainiac is simply engaging.
Standing ovation goes to the director himself for attempting at experimenting with the montage of particular scenes. The decision to put an emphasis on peculiar, slightly psychedelic sequences (e.g. after the first dose of the drug) has definitely worked in advantage of the quality of the whole picture, successfully increasing the visual value of the film (although the scene with the words popping up on the screen is reminiscent of the kitsch straight from '80). Not seldom does Burger employs interesting camera-zooms complemented with the sequences of the objective going straight through the elements of the surroundings (e.g. window shield). All the tricks mentioned above serve not solely to make the reception of the movie visually more attractive, but also to kick up the dynamic of the flick.
The cast does its job (above the average). Copper needs to be good-looking in the first place; however, his performance is not bad. The fact that his role does not require too much effort is a different matter...Robert De Niro on the other hand was hired presumably mainly for the promotional reasons because his role, albeit quite important for the whole movie, does not give this actor too much of a chance to deliver a spectacular performance.
'Limitless" is a movie of an underdeveloped potential. In some moments of the flick, it would be highly advisable to implement more explicit scenes and put the whole picture in a frame of a psychological thriller. In this case however, we have received a typical, flattened Hollywood-like story based on well delivered yet schematic plot. What is the biggest asset of Burger's movie is the lightness of the whole ruse and the way its plated into a headlong running action. The pace of the movie together with its interesting audio-visual side form an ostentatious, high-budget action flick. Without profound pondering as well as without a feeling of wasted time. I recommend 'Limitless" as a good entertainment.
The telegraphic shortcut: stoned (and thereby genial) Cooper in an action flick conveying a pseudo-message; impressive montage and engaging turn of events let the audience forget about the wasted potential of the story. For good measure, there is Robert De Niro dutifully doing his bit part.