Limitless review by Adam Truscott

Director: Neil Burger
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish

The One Where Limitless Makes Me Want To Score An 8th

The problem with trailers is that there can be a money shot. A shot that I spend the whole film waiting for. Probably guessing many times over in my head, how it will fit into the film.

The other problem with trailers can be that if a film has many ideas, the trailer can demonstrate that. It can look like a mess. It may be several brilliant ideas, but if they don’t gel, it probably won’t work.

If the film had a problematic time behind the scenes, that can show too – you be silently judging the film before you’ve even seen it.

Welcome to my Limitless review.

Limitless suffered from all of those things for me. The trailer was intriguing. But was it a thriller? A comedy? A vehicle to show how ridiculously good looking Bradley Cooper is? All of the above?

How did he end up on the top of that building? Is he jumping? Or stoned? Living life on the edge? So many questions. Could that even be considered a money shot? I mean, is that the best they can offer?

Well, I’m not sure what genre this film would be. It reminded me of Adjustment Bureau, (and I would imagine Source Code), where it jumps genre quite a bit. So as a result, the film is a mess. But what I would stress is that it’s as cohesive a mess as we could have hoped for.

There is a plot, for starts. And an idea. A very intriguing idea.

When the film started with a voice over of BC asking us what we would do, I smiled. I thought that was exactly how they should play it. Making us, the audience, try and figure whether we would do the same. I genuinely found myself thinking what I may do with all of that… potential.

On the advice of Garth Merenghi’s Dark Place (You Tube… NOW!), I’ve never done drugs. As a result, films like Fear And Loathing that are meant to really give an insight into how messy drugs are… Well, they leave me a bit cold. I can’t empathise with Hunter, driving around; worried the bats are closing in. So what is different here?

Well, for starters, BC is a recovering drug user/alcoholic. He’s down and out, (but still looks ridiculously good looking – even with scruffy hair). I can’t relate to that either, to be fair. But when a chance encounter gives him the opportunity to finish his book, after being unceremoniously dumped by his girlie, (hot, but a little needy), he takes it.

Plus he thinks the drug is approved, and “legal”.

That would be the way I could see myself getting duped into taking drugs.

“Hey, Mav… Take some of this. It’s… er… Legal. And approved, and that.

“Oh. Legal? OK then”.

So, I could relate to BCs decision-making. And then of course we get the effects of the drug, and it’s brilliant. As stupid as the title is, his ideas, potential… his life could all be limitless in terms of possibilities. I think they nailed selling the drugs to the audience, (Never do drugs). And I could see why BC would become addicted – Not least because he meets up with a frighteningly unglamorous Anna Friel, who is suffering some side effects of her own. That role is underwritten, and I think the whole film could do with a bit of Extended Limitless Edition work on Blu Ray. That was the troubled production, I guess. The change of title. The struggle to find a tone. Shift in release date.

DeNiro turns up, and phones it in. I had forgotten he was in it, much like Machete. You would rather have Bobby in your film though, than not. Think Angel Heart in terms of actual screen time, though. And keep a close eye on how his role changes. I really liked it. His sparring with BC at the very end adds depth to the film, just when you think it may have run out of ideas. Maybe they took another pill?

Neil Burger shows some brilliant visual flourishes, too. The “skips” in time should annoy me, with their Saw style jump cuts. But in this context, they worked. Less OCD/ADD, they actually made sense. “Limitless time”, where we see BC, or the user see all of the options available, that they couldn’t see before worked really well.

The fact the film gets other people to use the drug was my favorite element. I kept hoping that they finished with an X-Men style gag, where you thought all of the danger was gone, (Drugs are bad, M’Kay), then Mystique appears. In this film, I wanted them to explore that others were already using. Maybe we could get a sequel where the whole world is using? Everyone would be pretty much super heros? They could pass the drug between them… maybe by licking the blood of other uses?

No? No one fancy that? Pfft. Your loss.

Oh, and that money shot? Hardly a bomb falling from the sky, landing in Pearl Harbour then targeting a ship in terms of scale… Instead, we get BC stood on top of that building. Credit to the film for starting with that scene, and ending with it. As a wrap around I thought it worked really well. Who is trying to get into his apartment? Wanting him so bad they would try and chainsaw the door down? All valid questions. All sort of answered in a far better way to kill two hours than much of what else is on.

The end gag? In Japanese? Brilliant.

“What??”