Limitless (2011)  

Review: written June 2012

Popcorn movie fayre, from intriguing premise

Bradley Cooper makes a decent fist of his role here, as the down and out writer struggling to find inspiration and motivation, who is introduced to a new pill.. a wonder pill allowing the brain to access not just the 20% we use, but the whole brain - making him smarter, able to access every memory, and his abilities seem.. well, limitless. Alas, this performance comes with a price. The drug is not strictly legal, and he is not the only one who wants it.

It's a good hook, and broadly speaking the movie does a decent job of wringing a thriller out of it, and on the way makes some commentary on addiction - whether it is to drugs or to power or to consumerism. Unfortunately, it loses a lot of the bite as it progresses to an increasingly predictable thriller denouement. Effects and editing are cleverly (if rather flashily) used to emphasise the heightened awareness, creating an oddly hallucinogenic mood as he transitions from down and out to super perceptive charmer and wheeler dealer. In a supporting role Abbie Cornish does fine, and Robert de Niro shows up and says his lines in a throwaway role which seems almost perfunctorily added on. Presumably he does just enough to get on the front cover to help sales, but it helps neither his career, or the film.

It's pretty exciting and relatively action packed, with not too much violence. All in all, any looming ridiculousness is staved off by a pace which doesn't allow you to think too much. A shame perhaps, as with braver hands this might have been more of an interesting commentary rather than a thriller.. but it still works. The directors name is Neil Burger.. perhaps if you consider the movie as cinematic fast food, it's a success. It never felt like it had been put together by a masterchef, but it satisfied me at the time, reliably entertained me, even if I didn't remember much about it the next day.