Movie report: Limitless (2011)

Movie report: Limitless

Eddie (I love movies with characters named Eddie, although they are usually losers) is a loser. His wife divorced him. He lives in a sty of an apartment. He drinks too much. He somehow got someone to give him an advance to write a book, but he’s pissed that money away and hasn’t written a word.

Then he runs into [SPOILER ALERT: many spoilers ahead] his ex-brother-in-law, who slips him a pill without much explanation. Eddie, being that kind of guy, takes the pill.

The effect of the pill is amazing. Eddie becomes hyper-observant of his surroundings, able to access any information in his mind (not just the 10-20% we supposedly do), and sharp enough to put things together to solve any and all problems. He helps his landlord’s wife write a paper for law school, cleans his apartment, and writes half of the book he’s supposed to be working on. The movie looks different during these parts: enhanced colors, sharper, more focused, more energized. Eddie’s eyes are also bluer.

Then the pill wears off.

So Eddie gets more from his ex-brother-in-law, but that’s all he’ll be getting, and I won’t say why. With a steady supply of the pills, Eddie’s life takes off. He finishes the book. He cleans himself up. He meets interesting people and jets off to interesting parties. He re-connects with a super-achieving woman who had long ago dropped him because he was a loser. Then he starts thinking about what he wants to do with his life.

Let’s press Pause for a second. Imagine that you have just gotten this superpower – let’s call a spade a spade – this fantastic ability to focus and assimilate information and solve problems and make things happen: what would you do with it? Would you become a remarkable diplomat and bring some peace to the world? Would you turn to medical research and make life-saving discoveries? Would you become an astonishingly creative artist or composer or performer inspiring and delighting millions?

Eddie decides to make money.

Sigh.

So he becomes a day trader and makes lots of money. He borrows from a loan shark, and we all know how that’s going to turn out, right? Right. He gets discovered by a billionaire (Robert DeNiro, totally wrong for this part) and involved in the largest corporate merger in history. Snore. I mean, who cares?

Other things happen. His supply of pills is threatened and stolen. He experiences blackouts, during which he might have murdered someone, but, hey, his lawyer gets him off, so it’s all good. He kills a few more people in self-defense.

By the end, he’s cruising to election to the US Senate, which we can tell is merely a rest stop on his way to the presidency. And then the movie doesn’t so much end, as stop.

I suppose this is an interesting way for things to turn out. He was a loser. Now he’s a rich loser, a successful loser, a powerful loser, a ruler of the free world loser. But how disappointing.

Bottom line: the vision of this movie is, ironically, limited.