Bradley Cooper plays a failed writer whose life is falling apart until he takes a new pharmaceutical drug which unlocks 100% of his brain. His new found intelligence and ambition make him rich and popular but also a target for a whole host of undesirables.
Limitless does have a social/ moral statement to make, I just can’t help thinking it’s not strong enough. In essence it’s a film about greed and addiction but neither theme is dealt with as well as they have been previously elsewhere. There is really only one scene where addiction is debased, and that is one of the best scenes in the film as it shows the depths and lengths an addict will go to in order to get their fix. There is a narrative about the consequences of addiction, however in the context of Limitless it revolves almost exclusively around the health issues of withdrawal and relationships with underworld figures. There is very little narrative about the social consequences of addiction, as in films such as Trainspotting, in fact the consequences of addiction in this case are glamorised in a not dissimilar way that personal debt is in Confessions of a Shopaholic. As in the original Wall St. there is very much an underlying ethos of ‘greed is good’ and financial market speculation is prevalent. I’m not sure this sort of action or decadent behaviour endears a character to an audience given recent history. Robert De Niro plays a prominent Wall St. boss but doesn’t convince in the role. There’s always the feeling that Joe Pesci is going to come out of nowhere at De Niro’s request and break some face. His trademark squints and threats just don’t fit the character.
On the upside though it is an entertaining thriller and Anna Friel looks terrible (which is positive in the context of the film)!
