"Limitless" (2011)

Dwight Dekeyser rating: BBA

Dear Friend,

This was a good movie that ended great!  What I liked about this movie was that it got better as it went along.  It was not like some pictures with a provocative theme or idea that floundered in search of a cogent meaningful story.   I was leery at first.  The film was narrated by the main character in the first person.  This can become very tiresome – the reflective actor commenting on his past behavior and motives when it is plain for all to see events as they transpire.  Yes, you’re an untidy, unproductive, alcoholic writer who lives in and dank, dirty, and depressing studio in New York.  (I hope this is not sounding as familiar to you as it is to me.)  In this sense, the movie started on a cliché note and developed into what I thought would be a parable about drug abuse.  (Don’t tell me this is a Nancy Reagan “just say no” campaign!)  But this movie become much more than its seemingly obvious pretext.  It was an actual original screen play.

This was a movie written by a real writer, in that, it was a story that came full circle. (N.B.: a writer writing about a writer writing about a writer.)  Its structure was not just beginning, middle, and end, but it was ultimately circular.  The story started on a cliff hanger, literally, and ended on the same ledge – bravo!  It was not the usual succession of existentialist events we have come to expect as a movie, but it was a carefully crafted fable that asked profound questions about what it takes to be a creative successful individual in a complex and confusing world of recrimination, results, and retribution. “Show me the money!”  He showed them, alright with the help of a little opaque pill, “NZT-48,” to be exact.  (Sound like AZT to you, too?)  This magical drug made this loser of a self-pitying scribe into a superman of confidence, productivity, and supernatural intelligence.  This elixir of life allowed our hero to use the alleged 80% of his brain he was not utilizing into a force majeure.  There was no circumstance or situation that he could not overcome by his sheer mental might.  Or was this “medication” just a metaphor for Dutch courage or a shot of self-confidence?

The picture is centered around a grubby young writer Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), who is more adept at drinking beer and playing pool during the day than actually producing his purported novel.  He has a pretty plucky girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish), an up-and-coming editor who dumps her ne’er-do-well writer in frustration with his dependant disposition.   Life could not get any lower for our hapless Hemingway as he is abused by his (female) book editor for no manuscript and by his (female) landlord for non-payment of rent – a trifecta of terrifying termagants, one might say.  But fate has a funny way of finding those on their last leg (so I am told) and he runs into his ex-brother-in-law, the ex-drug dealer – now pharmaceutical rep., who gives him a gift of magical medicine.  You can keep your Cialis -- I want NZT!  This drug is a combination of everything you have ever heard of: speed, ecstasy, cocaine, crystal meth, with a just a touch of LSD.   Eddie becomes productive, prodigious, precognizant, and prophetic, until the buzz wears off, and he needs to pop another pill.  His hopeless addiction leads him on an adventure that is as exhilarating as it is terrifying.  (Did I say, “just say no” to drugs?)

The movie was beautifully cast.  Bradley Cooper really carried this movie of metamorphosis and mayhem.  Limitless was about his character’s evolution from sub- to superhuman.  It was a great part well-played.  For a movie that centered on a single actor, one never tired of focusing on him throughout the picture, much in the way of Dennis Price in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), there was such cunning character development.  Unlike the restrained Kind Hearts, there was a lot of sex and violence in this movie.  (It is an American picture, after all.)  However, it was incidental to the story and suited the purpose of the film; it was none-the-less an entertaining aspect to the film, not its purpose.  There was a genuine chemistry between Cooper and Cornish, which kept the audience routing for their relationship.  Cooper was up to the task of facing his nemesis, the formidable Robert DeNiro, with equal aplomb.  I think you’re really going to like this movie.

Here is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3U9RsXeJ3w

From the vault:  Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), directed by Robert Hammer, starring Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Alec Guinness, and Valerie Hobson.   In my opinion, this is one of the best written screenplays (by Hammer) ever.  The BBC English is pure heaven to hear.  It is chock full of British understatement and sly humor.  Sibella, “I’ve married the dullest man in London.” Louis, “In England!”  Sibella, “In Europe!”

Best of luck in your viewing selections.  Your faithful friend,

Dwight Dekeyser

© 2011 Dwight Dekeyser, Esq.  All rights reserved.