What would it be like to be able to remember and recall everything you have ever heard, read, or seen?  Statistics show that most people only retain or recall around 10 percent of what we hear in a lecture or learn through visuals. We also only use about 10 percent of our brain. What kind of an advantage would you gain by having access to the other 90 percent of the information you have accumulated, and the other 90 percent of the unused brainpower?  What if all that separated you and your library of information and brainpower was a pill? Would you be brave enough to take it?

That is the question that Eddie Marrow (Bradley Cooper) faces in the film “Limitless.” In the beginning of the film, Marrow is a novelist who is suffering from writers block, on the verge of loosing his charter, and heartbroken from his long- time and now ex- girlfriend. Marrow is at the lowest point of his life- broke struggling, and alone.  This is when his fate is destined for a change. Just when things cannot get any worse, they end up getting a whole lot better.

Enter the pill. Marrow happens to bump into an old friend who was at one point a drug dealer, but now a self-proclaimed drug rep for a pharmaceutical company. Most people would be a little skeptical, but when you’re so distracted over your own misfortune and misery it’s easy to let yourself be naive. The friend offers Cooper a pill and promises that it will make his creative problems disappear. “The pill makes you the best you that you could ever be.”

With great hesitation our leading man mulls over the idea of taking the pill, at first not wanting to, but then he does anyway. This is when Bradley Cooper begins to take the audience on a wild voyeuristic ride that audiences will not forget. What would you do if you became brilliant over night? If all of a sudden your inhibitions went away, and never returned? Would you seduce the once out of reach elitist fashion models? Would you jet set around the world in private jets to tropical settings? Would you use your newfound intellect to negotiate stocks, bonds and arrange high-end business mergers? Would you look up those ex- girlfriends or boyfriends who scorned you to show them how amazing you actually are?

From the point where Eddie Marrow makes that life- changing decision, the film bursts into thrills and paranoia- fueled action sequences that will leave you shaken and wondering, “Why would anyone want to live a life like this?”

Bradley Cooper is paired on screen with Robert De Niro who plays a mega mogul businessman that sees Cooper’s talents and wants to acquire him to assist with the business deal of a lifetime. De Niro is as flawless as ever and the on screen chemistry of the two sends sparks into the air as the audience wonders, “Who is the hunter and who is the prey?” De Niro has so many layers in his work that he puts on this character with ease and shows how strong an older man can be, even when he is weak.

Cooper gives not one or two great scenes as Eddie Marrow, but an overall tour de force that stuns the viewer into whole- heartedly believing that the man’s journey was necessary. The brilliance of the role endures in the audiences understanding of why he was changing and Marrow’s grasp of  why he needed to change throughout the story arc.  He is not the same constant hero as he stumbles, reforms, regrets and moves on, which gives the viewer justification for his sometimes out of the ordinary behavior.

Besides the feel good story line of our lead character going from nobody to somebody, there is a deeper story of the betrayal of others, and one’s self, along with addiction.

Final Review

To simply say that the film is only about one man’s climb to the top of the food chain would be to only tell the readers about a fourth of the real story. The one problem I had with this film wasn’t even the film itself.

My problem was that the previews I saw of the film showed a very shallow version of what the actual premise was. In all honesty I felt like I had seen the whole film during the 3- minute clip of scenes strung together. To me it looked like another “same old storyline” movie that resembled “Scarface.”

The lead character goes from being nothing to the highest possible point he could achieve only to loose it all at the end. We have seen this story line so many times that I was convinced that “Limitless” was just another updated version of the same story. Boy was I wrong!  I do not want to give too much away about the ending or the real story line of the film, but there is so much more to this story than showcasing another person’s rise and fall in America. If you were hesitant to see the film for fear of knowing the ending, don’t be because you do not know what is going to happen nor will you, until you see the end for yourself.