Film Review | Limitless

As the otherwise frantically-paced techno-thriller Limitless finally pulls into its long overdue third act and ends on a cheeky – if abrupt – coda, you will be left feeling that you’ve watched something undeniably, unabashedly sleek.

Neil Burger’s (The Illusionist) film – adapted from Alan Glynn’s 2001 novel Dark Fields – reeks of sleek. Every frame glides into the other, punctuated by Scott-Pilgrim-lite architectonics and smug, hastily delivered quips.

Of course, it helps that the story is largely set in the highest, most brutal echelons of the New York business scene… and that its star is The Hangover’s Bradley Cooper who, with his reptilian eyes, ear-to-ear lips and slicked black hair, would be a dead ringer for a noughties-era Gordon Gekko.  

And in fact, his role was originally meant for Shia La Beouf, who played apprentice to Michael Douglas’s Wall Street pariah in the watered-down sequel to the 80s classic, released last year.

However, when we first meet Eddie Morra (Cooper) he is as far from sleek as you’d imagine. Struggling to get started on his science fiction novel, Eddie gets dumped by his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish), who grows tired of his inert, self-defeating nature.

At his lowest ebb, he bumps into his ex-brother-in-law Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), who introduces him to a mind altering drug which comes in the form of a small transparent pill. Basically an army of self-help books put into action, the ‘NZT’ skyrockets Eddie’s confidence, to the point where he not only finishes his long-gestating novel in a matter of days, but looks snazzy doing so too.

But when he returns for a second dose, he finds Vernon murdered. Soon, it becomes apparent that the game Eddie has stumbled into is not only dangerous, but could prove fatal.

Burger takes the concept and runs – or should I say glides? – with it at breakneck speed. So speedily does it move from one act to the next, in fact, that it might be easy to miss just how clever the film can be: near-throwaway references to historical-cultural events are peppered throughout and shade the thematic underbelly of the film nicely. At its root, though, this is basically another ‘pact with the devil’ tale, part Faust, part Twilight Zone.

In his way, Cooper is perfect. He’s punchable when he needs to be – which, as fantasy-fulfilment-vessel par excellance, is all the time in this case. The weary, sporadic appearances by Robert De Niro (who’s half-mentor, half-antagonist) are the only real comedown here – none of us are fooled by his phoned in performances anymore, so it’s depressing that he insists on just carrying on with the charade.

Eddie’s meteoric rise to the top is delicious to savour, and the inevitable backlash makes for some nice schadenfreude… especially when the Russian mafia get in on it too. But it does drag along for too long… and how much fun could watching someone wired on a dream drug – one you will never get a chance to savour – possibly be?