Limitless

 This slick thriller offers a diverting Friday night’s entertainment, but nothing more or less. That’s a shame given the potential of its plot. The one thing it does very well, though, is showcases many screen talents of main actor Bradley Cooper. The Hangover star is the perfect choice to play Eddie Mora (Bradley Cooper), a scruffy writer who transforms from an unmotivated layabout into an extremly domesticated businessman with a razor-sharp mind after he takes a mysterious ‘clear pill’. It’s the kind of show stoping performance that used to be Tom Cruise’s speciality; Cooper displays effortless confidence in front of the camera, but also possesses a particular intense dramatic ability that brings an audience immediately into his character’s moment.

 

 But while Cooper shines, the story he’s in the middle of moves from promising beginnings to settle into almost a sci fi film thriller. The idea of a pill that can open up unlocked doors in the human mind is a fascinating one, and director Neil Burger initially seems interested in exploring it: the way the pill throws open Eddie’s mind recalls Tyler Durden’s system-subversion in Fight Club, and Burger’s Fincher-aping camera techniques encourage the comparison. But this main point is not particularly explored by Leslie Dixon’s script, adapted from Alan Glynn’s 2001 novel The Dark Fields. Instead, once the film establishes how much power and status Eddie can acquire through the pill, it quickly shifts attention to the external threats to his predicament. People who want to stop him, the problem of maintaining a supply, and how to keep it a secret. The meaning that the pill effectively becomes what Hitchcock called a "MacGuffin"; an object that the plot hinges on but is not important in itself. Once this happens, anything that was uniquely interesting or compelling about the story is overlooked by simple ‘survive-at-all-costs’ thriller concept.

 

 The movie is very vague and lacks strong support of its central point-the magic clear pill will give you the ability to open up unused space in the mind. To an untrained eye all of the great action would distract one away from all of the random senecs in the movie and divertoins from the main topic. The author was attempting to make a film that would make you think as well as give you some action but all he managed to do is make another action film. In conclution, the movies central idea needs to be stronger and more direct and stick with that idea the whole time and not stray from it.