the fresh films reviews

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Limitless (2011)

Director:
Neil Burger
COUNTRY
USA
GENRE
Thriller/Science Fiction
NORWEGIAN TITLE
Limitless
RUNNING TIME
105 minutes
Producer:
Leslie Dixon
Ryan Kavanaugh
Scott Kroopf
Screenwriter (based on "The Dark Fields" by Alan Glynn):
Leslie Dixon


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Eddie Morra Bradley Cooper
Carl Van Loon Robert De Niro ½
Lindy Abbie Cornish
Melissa Gant Anna Friel
Vernon Gant Johnny Whitworth ½
Don Pierce Robert John Burke

 

Review

Bradley Cooper plays a struggling, apathetic writer who suddenly gets his life on track and his creativity buzzing after being introduced to a new underground drug by his shady former brother-in-law. And not only that, he also becomes brilliant with numbers and irresistibly charming. Although this may seem like a fairly ridiculous premise, it has an obvious infantile charm which, when it's handled as cleverly and playfully as in Limitless, is hard to resist. The film follows some unnecessary and genre-typical paths (with keywords such as mobsters and Wall Street), but even though it's somewhat disappointing that a man who can basically do anything decides to put his mind to deciphering the stock market, instead of going for more creative or intrinsically valuable areas, the way the film portrays our protagonist's feeling of limitless possibilities and the experiences he has while on the drug – both positive and negative – is far from disappointing. Director Neil Burger certainly captures the spirit of the story, and Bradley Cooper's determined, multi-faceted performance makes us root for him far more than his endeavours and character probably warrants. Limitless is neither watertight nor groundbreaking, but it gets a lot of fun and astute observations out of an enticing concept.

Copyright © 13.3.2012 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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