Starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish and Robert De Niro, Limitless is a 2011 thriller about love, drugs, success, and crime, based on Alan Glynn’s 2001 novel ‘The Dark Fields’.
Suffering from severe writer’s block, aspiring author and no-hoper Eddie Morra (Cooper) hits rock bottom. His girlfriend (Cornish) leaves him, he has no words for his first novel, and he exists in a scummy apartment, fuelled by alcohol and takeaways.
Resembling an inhabitant of the streets, Eddie bumps into his ex-wife’s drug-dealing brother who introduces him to NZT, an experimental, revolutionary brain-enhancing pill allowing the user full access to 100 per cent of his brain power.
Taking one of these little pills, Eddie turns into a mega-IQ superman with boundless energy and mental power. He soon takes Wall Street by storm, parlaying a small stake into millions. Mega-mogul and financial honcho, Carl Van Loon (De Niro) invites him to help broker the largest merger in corporate history, and Eddie becomes an all-knowing, all-seeing, perfect version of himself rising to the very top of the financial world.
Although NZT seems like the super-drug, a pill designed to maximise your full potential and subsequently,make millions from your success story, it has brutal side effects. With a murder sub-plot thrown in the mix, mysterious stalkers, and a vicious gangster, the film combines the distress and torture affiliated with the drug world with the corruption which lies under high business.
At one point, the film makes you crave one of these little tablets making you wonder what you could achieve if you could access 100 per cent of your brain power, as well as question what it really takes to make it to the top of business.
The impossible is made possible, but is it really worth the risk and sacrifice? And what will happen when the drug supply runs out? With a dwindling stash and hit men who will do anything to him to get their hands on NZT, Eddie must stay wired long enough to avoid capture and fulfil his destiny. If he can’t, he will become just another helpless victim of the drug.
The film is essentially about the strive for success, drug addiction, and the story of misery, fortune and depravity.
Enjoyable, fast-paced and, in some ways, inspirational. We are all like Eddie in some ways, maybe you could be the one who makes it to the top without a magic potion, and arrive there just by pure self-determination and relentless. Good luck.
