rock stars in rehab

Rating: 8/10 (1 December 2013)

This movie was incredible. I didn't want to watch the movie because of the lead, I didn't like his work in 'All about Steve'. But he was believable/like-able/weird-dorky in this, in the same way that he's likable in The Hangover movies and Yes Man.
The concept of a super-drug that makes people smarter than they originally are, is not unreal. Where smarter is defined as alert, attentive and calm. What most people would define as the state of being high. There have been many drugs that have helped users gain confidence, achieve mental clarity and so forth. There are always side effects though. The most publicized of these are Visual Hallucinations. Which are rare even with Schizophrenics(There's a lot of debate of whether there is such a thing as Schizophrenia among the psych community). John Nash never had anything other than auditory hallucinations. The drug has withdrawal effects which can be averted if the drug is tapered properly, this is the case with most psych drugs legal or illegal.
There are assumptions that a hunch is a carefully calculated mathematical derivation based on all the information you have. In the day of Google all kinds of information is accessible but to put it all together and make it useful at all times though possible is not in the best interests of the corrupt gurus of the business world who (according to the movie) bribed their way to the top. The movie ignores misinformation, misunderstandings, deflection, lying, fraud and everything else that can't be seen through just by remembering things. Even if your memory is perfectly/accurate. The reason why the stock market isn't predictable is because companies don't disclose everything. If there was complete information/transparency everybody would know what stock will go up or down, and become rich.
This movie perpetuates the myth that accurately predicting markets is a matter of intelligence and not luck/Corporate-Espionage. Anybody who believes this should read Nasim Taleb's Black Swan, a first year statistics/finance/mathematics text or watch the movie 21.
Plot potholes that aren't potholes: Phantom Agony wrote a review highlighting plot defects. I deduce from the review that (A) Phantom never opened a law book in his/her life. Phantom would be surprised at how lax the police is when it comes to investigating serious crimes, especially when they involve family members (including the ex-brother-in-law) plus since NZT wasn't officially 'out' it wasn't officially illegal. All white powder is investigated in the scene of a crime but oil capsules are easily missed. There's no known illicit drug that's distributed or packaged in that form. There was absolutely no reason to assume he stole anything. Theft is investigated when theft is reported. Crime scene tampering is a problem only once the yellow tape is up or tampering can be proved. He didn't have a gun. He reported the crime. He stayed at the scene of the crime until the police arrived. That's all the police would be interested in at the time. Criticism (2) is also rife with contradictions, um he 'did' remember it was 'constantly' on his mind as Phantom admits. He was smart and he was occupied with other things. Smart people avail opportunities, super smart NZT people avail 'every' opportunity. (3) The people in this movie are using NZT a fictional super drug that looks like a Seven Seas capsule and makes people pay attention to mundane details and make use of them efficiently, nothing is far-fetched. Why couldn't the henchman figure it out and make connections that most people (the rest of us, who don't take the imaginary drug) can't make? That's the whole premise of the story. Of course he could make those connections, he was on NZT?