We’ve all heard the fact that scientists say we can only access 20% of our brain. What would happen if we could access all of it? That is what the movie Limitless sets out to explore.
The movie starts out as Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper ), a struggling writer living in New York City, hits an all time low. He can’t seem to write anything worthwhile, and he is on the verge of being kicked out of his apartment. Eddie randomly sees his ex-brother-in-law on the street one day and becomes introduced to this miracle pill known as NZT. The pill interacts with the brain and allows you to have access to all parts, which means that the user of the pill becomes extremely smart. Eddie soon finds that many people are after these scarce and expensive pills (one pill goes for around 800 dollars) when he finds his ex-brother-in-law murdered.
Luckily Eddie finds the stash of NZT and begins to take them regularly. Suddenly Eddie finds himself living in a world completely different than the one he knew. He’s a millionaire giving financial advice to one of the top business moguls in America, Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro). Now what’s the catch with this pill? Coming down from the “high” causes headaches, lack of focus, extreme pain and can cause death. So when Eddie runs out of pills, you can imagine it’s not good.
The entire movie keeps you enthralled in the life of Eddie. You find yourself starting to question things and wonder what you would do if you were in the characters’ positions. You even feel like you became a little smarter watching the movie.
However, one of the drawbacks of the movie is that parts of the plot don’t seem to make sense and are really confusing. Other parts seem really dumb and unrealistic. I really like the concept of the whole movie, but I feel like the writer did not fully flesh out the idea.
Nevertheless, this film does do a really good job at taking this crazy, completely unrealistic idea and making it applicable to current times so that the audience can relate.
The style of filming also allows you to become entrapped in the movie. When Eddie nearly overdoses on NZT and is blacking out, you also feel like you’ve just overdosed on the pill and don’t know what you’re doing or what’s going on.
“Limitless” is an entertaining thriller that will keep you engaged during the whole 105 minutes. The whole movie is unpredictable. The unclear ending will have you walking out of the theater arguing about what really happened.
CW Critic Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
