Limitless

Ah, our blue eyed ensemble boy Bradley Cooper. Always sharing the billing with at least 3 other actors, he rarely has the chance to lead from the front. Here he takes centre stage as Eddie Morra, a struggling writer who ends up taking an experimental drug that means he can utilise 100% of his brain. Within days Morra is writing bestselling novels, learning languages in a day and soon finds himself at the peak of the financial world. The downside? The pills are running short, the side-effects are horrendous and shady businessmen (one played by Robert De Niro) and shady criminals (some Russians that appear to have wondered in off a Guy Ritchie film set). This is a real mixture of a film, as smart as it is silly. There’s no doubting though it has a nice USP and this has been reflected in the decent return at the box office. Cooper plays the role well, though this probably has something to do with his usual choice of film roles which mean he only has to act smug or shocked most of the time. Here is no exception. Nothing against the man but it looks like it’s going to be a while yet before he is bona fide leading man material. Director Neil Burger has had a short career behind the camera so far, but already has a few underrated films under his belt. Limitless will probably fall into the same category. You’ll recommend it to people, but won’t encourage them to go out of their way to see it. There are some nice touches here though, including a superb credits sequence and a few tantalisingly left open plot strands that make you think more than your average film. On the downside to this, what also appears to be limitless is the amount of plot-holes littered throughout the screenplay. It actually makes a bit of a mess of the film the more you think about them so best just try to go along with the whole concept. Though I recently read that the DVD will have an extended cut of the film which will apparently address some of these issues. So that just begs the obvious question. Why not release that vision of the film in the cinema in the first place?

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict

Worth watching for the visual flair on show from Burger, but this isn’t quite the sum of its parts. Rating: 6/10