Amidst the mishmash of clichés, Limitless is okay, but the first thirty seconds impel the viewer to question “Why do I watch?” as it presents itself as yet another film that begins at the end, with Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) contemplating whether stepping from the ledge of his upper story balcony is better than facing the forces pounding on the apartment door. Director Neil Burger shoots the scene well enough – as he does with the rest of a movie that intermingles blue and gray shades with moments of fluorescent yellows and oranges — that it’s not too tense to be distracting; at the same time, the suicide bit is futile and lost on an audience, not because we assume the lead character played by the recently named hottest actor alive will be spared – it would be great if one actually took the plunge – but because he’s also narrating his potential tap dance off high, or rather confessing that he “came this close to having an impact on the world, and now the only thing I’d have an impact on is the sidewalk.”
Friendly tip to writers and directors: narrators can’t die if they’re narrating, lest we end up with an annoyingly illogical narrative. Even Oscar winners like American Beauty are not immune to scrutiny when it comes to this. Lester Burnam, the Kevin Spacey-played lead in that film, died. He shouldn’t have narrated anything. But I digress.
Truthfully, this cliché is not nearly as annoying as the next one that imagines Morra as a writer who suffers from writer’s block. Unkempt and looking more drug addict that struggling artist, he bounces balls off of ceilings for motivation and rampbes on about a novel centering on “the plight of the individual in the twenty-first century” in a type of “utopian society,” which is a long-winded euphemism for “drivel.”
Luckily, Morra, while listing along the sidewalk like a bum, runs into his former brother-in-law, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), who invites him to coffee. Inside the cafe, Vernon slides an $800 translucent pill across the table. Of course, Morra takes it, and why not?
Heading home, things become clearer, and Morra begins to see himself from outside of himself; he is hyper-aware of his surroundings, but not “drowsy” or “wired, just clear headed.” Essentially, he’s come across methamphetamine without the nasty, sunken-eyed, toothless-jaw, eviscerated-cheek side effects.
And this, I think, is where the film gets interesting; Morra speed writes a few hundred pages of what presumably is drivel (just based on his potential final words on the ledge of his highrise); fiends for more pills; goes to Vernon’s apartment; leaves to buy him a sandwich; returns to find his head aerated by a bullet; steals his stash; and shakes off the guilt and begins indulging in NZT48. The silliness of the last few clauses is surpassed by Burger’s use of color and shot selection that sucks the viewer into the screen, and then shuffles us ten to twenty blocks up a Manhattan avenue before sending us into an airplane, over a sparkling blue ocean and into a restaurant staring out on a white sand beach.
In truth, the narrative also improves – momentarily — when Morra begins indulging in NZT48, but the trajectory of the conflict becomes rather evident from the outset. Clearly, he has a set supply; thus, he must come up with more. People begin chasing him, so they must need some as well. And, how does anyone with extreme focus make enough money to manufacture their own product? Well, they become instant stock analysts and consult for gigantic firms.
From here on out, the film becomes an allegory on trust in a capital-driven environment.
Limitless is fun, but it’s rushed and confused. In a way, it feels as if it tries to be too many of its predecessors. There are elements here of Fight Club, American Psycho, The Game, and Michael Clayton, but it hardly fashions enough of its own identity to make the viewer forget about those that came before it.
