There’s a great line in David Mamet’s rather under-rated heist movie Heist, in which Gene Hackman explains how he could possibly be so clever. He says, “I tried to imagine a fella smarter than myself. Then I tried to think, ‘What would he do?’” Of course, the problem with imagining somebody smarter than yourself is that you actually have to be pretty smart to begin with. The filmmakers behind Limitless, out this Friday, apparently don’t qualify. The protagonist of their story supposedly has an I.Q. in ‘the quadruple digits’ but consistently makes choices so mindbogglingly idiotic that the entire premise falls apart. It’s been said that the audience should never be too far ahead of the main character, but when the protagonist is supposed to be some kind of super genius it’s just plain embarrassing when the audience completely laps him.
Bradley Cooper stars as Eddie Morra, a would-be writer with no motivation, no girlfriend after the first couple of scenes, and no talent to speak of. He’s at his lowest ebb when he runs into his former brother-in-law, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth of Gamer), who claims to be working for a pharmaceutical company that’s about to release a new ‘smart’ drug called NZT. He gives Eddie a free sample, and Eddie quickly learns that NZT is the smartest drug ever designed, unlocking his full intellectual capacity. Eddie can now remember everything he’s ever seen or read and apply that knowledge in unexpected, highly useful ways. First he beds his landlord’s wife. Then he cleans his apartment. Then he pounds out the first 80 pages of his now-brilliant novel in a single evening. Man… That’s some good shpadoinkle.
But of course this is a movie, and Eddie can’t just stay productive and happy for long. Vernon soon ends up dead and Eddie’s got his last bag of NZT. He proceeds to chain-swallow the pills, finishing his novel, learning every language he can get his hands on, traveling the world with attractive ladies who are turned on by smarts (and, not surprisingly, by Bradley Cooper), and so on. But he wants more. He wants money. So he starts pummeling the stock market with the full power of his intellect, attracting the attention of financial tycoon Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro), who takes Eddie under his wing. Eddie’s the toast of the town, but he’s being followed by a mysterious creepy guy, he’s in debt to the mob, and he’s starting to black out from overdosing on intellect. Can Eddie think his way out of these problems? Can he think his way out of a bullet?
Director Neil Burger previously directed The Illusionist, a handsome-looking production that starred Ed Norton as a magician trying to pull off the impossible. When viewed critically, his actions were actually pretty preposterous. Burger continues his attempts to elevate poorly conceived material with Limitless, a film about a smart man who consistently does stupid things. Of course if he was really smart he’d have just stayed home, quietly played the stock market and pumped out classic novels like they were Twitter posts. But that wouldn’t be very interesting to watch. Or maybe it would. We’ll never know now. Burger, his director of photographer Jo Willems (30 Days of Night) and writer Leslie Dixon (Mrs. Doubtfire) attempt to liven up Limitless – which should by all rights have been the story of a guy simply getting his life together – through a combination of exciting but overzealous camerawork and extremely artificial plotting that forces the smartest man in the world to act like an utter moron just to keep the story going where it has no particular need to go.
No review of Limitless would be complete without a rundown of the many things Eddie Morra does that undermine the very concept that he is intelligent, let alone superhumanly so. A small compilation:
1) Eddie borrows money from the mob. I’d elaborate on that, but honestly? Anybody who’s ever seen a movie before knows that’s just about the stupidest thing any person can do.
2) Eddie forgets to pay the mob back. For more details, see #1.
3) Eddie buys the most secure apartment in New York City because he fears for his life, but doesn’t check to make sure that he gets cell phone reception while he’s in there. I’ve never met anyone who goes apartment hunting and doesn’t check for reception the first time they walk through the door.
4) Eddie only has a limited amount of the magic brain pills, and yet he never makes an effort to determine the source of the drug so he can get more, nor does he make using his enormous brainpower to replicate the substance a priority.
5) Eddie finds the perfect secret hiding place for his magic brain pills, and later idly hands it over for a couple minutes to some guy he barely knows, for no good reason, without thinking twice about it.
6) Just to clarify, #5 means that Eddie keeps all of his magic brain pills in one place.
7) Eddie makes a speech about how a truly smart person with a modest amount of success should never risk it all for unrealistic goals, but the entire plot revolves around Eddie making $12 million in ten days, and then spending the rest of the film jeopardizing his life for no other reason than to make more money, even faster.
I could go on.
Limitless is not an unwatchable film, and actors like the estimable Bradley Cooper and the underutilized Robert DeNiro make the 105-minute running time fly by… but that’s a mercy, not a shame. The veneer is polished, but the contents are missing. The only thing that's limitless about Limitless is the missed opportunities: Everybody dreams about being able to do more, be more and accomplish more than humanly possible. But I’m pretty sure everyone in the audience can dream a little bigger than this, and probably manage to not piss off the mob in the process.
Crave Online Rating: 3.5 out of 10
