Courtesy of Cineworld and Momentum Pictures, I managed to blag a free preview ticket to see Limitless this evening. A shame I couldn’t find anyone to join me as I had two tickets!
Limitless
“It’s FDA approved.”
Plot-in-a-nutshell – Down and out author starts taking mind improvement drugs and rockets in popularity… but with consequences.
You know a studio is confident about  film when they offer advance tickets to the buying public, in much the same way that you know a film’s going to stink more than one of my farts if they don’t even have a press screening in time for reviews to get out before the release date. Momentum have every right to be happy with Limitless. It’s very enjoyable indeed.
Bradley Cooper plays Eddie Morra (thankfully Shia LaBeouf had to drop out as he injured himself – a small price to pay to have him replaced), a struggling writer who’s view of deadlines is somewhat lackadaisical. Out wandering the streets one day, he bumps into his ex-wife’s brother (Johnny Whitworth) who used to deal drugs. He’s now on the straight and narrow, and offers Eddie a taster of a new “smart drug” which allows a person to harness every synapse in their brain.
Morra very quickly becomes quite a success with his new discovery, and seeks out more of the drug. However, the bro-in-law wasn’t quite as above-board as he claimed and our hero finds himself in quite a troubling situation… while at the same time riding high in the world of finance.
His boss in the office is played wonderfully by class-act Robert De Niro, while the girlfriend rôle is handled well by the rather pretty Abbie Cornish. Cooper himself is excellent as the alternately smart/snappy then down/knackered central character. The dialogue is quick in places and the story fairly original.
As well as a novel plot, the movie is filmed very well and sequences linking scenes are imaginatively done with some funky special effects that genuinely add to the experience. It’s also got a wonderful dark streak of humour running through it. One scene near the end had the woman next to me chewing her knuckles and very close to covering her eyes!
I can also say that this is the first film I’ve seen in a long time where I was disappointed when the credits rolled. Not because it was pants, but the exact opposite – I’d love to see what happened next. It ends well, but there was scope for the story to continue. It’s very rare for a movie to achieve what Limitless did. Leave the audience wanting more.
Related articles
- Big Movie Monday – Limitless (wdok.radio.com)
- ‘Limitless’ For A Week (mrmovietimes.com)
- Limitless (thehcomplex.wordpress.com)
