Impressions: Limitless

Plot: Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is a writer who lives in New York City and has recently been dumped by his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) in addition to failing to meet the deadline to turn in his new book, which he hasn’t written yet. One day, Eddie comes across Vernon Gant (Johnny Whitworth), the brother of his ex-wife Melissa Gant (Anna Friel). Vernon is a drug dealer who offers Eddie a sample of a new drug, NZT-48. Eddie accepts and, much to his surprise, the drug increases his intelligence and improves his focus.

Eddie asks Vernon for more of the drug, which is illegal, and Vernon agrees. When Eddie goes to Vernon’s apartment, Vernon tells him to pick up his suit from the cleaners and get some breakfast for the both of them. When he returns, he finds Vernon dead. He also finds a stash of NZT hidden in the oven alongside a book with several names and some money, which he takes for his own personal gain. With Vernon’s money and the NZT, Eddie creates a new image for himself and abandons writing to enter the stock market.

Impressions: I enjoyed this movie, something about hyper intellectual films intrigues me, or this case the idea of being a hyper intellect.

It’s a genuinely curious concept about a drug that makes you smart. What it really does is allow you to access your brain in it’s entirety. Imagine every single thing you’ve ever seen, read, heard in your entire life. Now all that information visually, textually or audio based is stored in our brains, we’ll either remember it later in life in passing reminder of something similar, that information could be something we’ve studied over and over. I’m talking every single minute detail in our own personal existences, the smallest thing to the most broad thing. All of it completely accessible to us in a manner that isn’t something of a simple memory, but a hard fact toted document. The drug makes your brain organized, but more that, it takes all the information you have in your brain and allows it to be quickly accessed at your own personal whim. You’re focused beyond any type of multiplier and you see things before they happen. It’s a super you. Oh if you’re already smart, it works even better.

The story is an interesting take on human persona, psychology and overall questions what would we do with all that knowledge? It differs from person to person, but does it change who you are or is this who you are meant to be? The movie is based on the book The Dark Fields, which has a much different ending then what is given in the film. I won’t divulge it, but I did enjoy Limitless from start to finish. The movie is about Bradley Cooper’s character, Eddie Morra a creatively stumped writer who has just been dumped by his girlfriend. After the breakup he runs into his ex-brother-in-law, from his previous marriage. Who happens to be an ex-drug dealer or so he leads Eddie to believe he’s clean now. He sees Eddie looking like he’s at absolute rock bottom and offers a solution to his problem. A miracle drug, which will illuminate him. Before you know it, Eddie is hooked on the drug and begins doing things he never thought he’d do. Naturally there are side effects, the major one being one of always having to continually move forward. A continual rush of just feeding the brain with things to do. I’ll end my synopsis here, as I just wanted to get that point across of the drug always pushing Eddie forward. Because that’s how this film is.

The movie uses interesting lighting techniques to show when the drug is in effect and when it isn’t. This follows through with the pacing of the film as well, it’s direction both in the literal sense of the script but also in the tone of the movie as well. It’s subtle in it’s presentation and when it’s made apparent, like the using the drug, things begin to make sense. The movie in it’s 105 minutes keeps pushing you forward, you want to know how it’s going to end up and it’s continual with an even to steady to fast moving pace. I dismissed this movie initially after seeing a trailer for it. The previous description I read about it wasn’t what I thought it would end up being when I saw the trailer. However when I finally watched the movie, I was pleasantly surprised.

So if you’re looking for a movie which is compact and presents everything for what it is on screen. Check out Limitless. It’s mindless in the movie going sense, but definitely not mindless in what it’s about.

About the author

Ghost Dad wrote 56 articles on this blog.

I was named after my grandmama!

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