Limitless

A struggling writer (Bradley Cooper as Eddie Mora) discovers he can access nearly 100% of his forgotten memories/observations after accidentally receiving a miracle drug from his ex-brother-in-law, and proceeds to excel. He finishes his novel in 4 days and afterwards sets out to make his fortune. The drug's side-effects are none to pleasant, however, and he soon experiences blackouts and debilitating nausea. But because he's functioning at such a high level, there are basically no professional consequences and he manages to maintain employment while suffering a dangerous breakdown. Thugs to whom he unfortunately gave the drug come calling for more and it soon becomes necessary to hire protection.

Much can be said about Neil Burger's Limitless. I thought it was an entertaining film whose execution lacked appeal yet still established several provocative dimensions which encourage further reflection. The ways in which Eddie handles his drug addiction for instance. It's like tobacco companies using their resources to find a cure for lung cancer or governments investing heavily in land reclamation technologies to make mining more environmentally friendly. Or drug addiction itself. Burger de/reconstructs the pharmaceutical industry throughout, evocatively investigating its extremes. The cult of the individual is presented existentially and communally as Eddie and Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro) square off, and the ways in which critical synthetic intelligences (and pharmaceuticals) are valued by a knowledge based capitalist economy receives dramatic attention as well. Eddie's rise leaves behind a lot of plot-related baggage which can be justified by the fact that he's continually moving forward, the film moving to fast for its own internal construction, like a drug addict, but it still doesn't spend enough time examining the publication of his novel or the fact that he could have used his abilities to write something comparable to Proust. The film's writing also has a certain flair that disappears after Eddie abandons his writing career, including the introduction of the ex-brother-in-law. The lows Eddie hits and their consequent despair and paranoia are cultivated directly and poetically as he struggles to maintain, and I thought Burger did a good job of filmically distilling a bad hangover. Sort of funny how when he's a broke relatively sober writer everyone treats him like a drug addict but when he starts taking pharmaceuticals and gaining prestige he's revered. One of the morals suggests that beneficial drugs whose side-effects are curtailed can help you become a United States Senator if you hire shrewd lawyers to cover your ass while curtailing said side-effects and can outwit your enemies when they come to kill you. Libya of all countries is mentioned twice. I guess Gadhafi should have invested more in research . . .