Limitless
Eddie Morra:
A tablet a day and I was Limitless...
The movie starts at the end of the film with our character Eddie Morra standing on the ledge at the top a building in the city with people breaking in ater him, he is considering jumping however, we aren't shown the rest. So we are then brought to the start of the film.
Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is an unemployed writer who wears unkempt clothes, long scruffy hair and is close to looking homeless where he is unsuccessful at writing. He has a contract to write a book however, his writer's block is an obstacle to his success. At lunch with his partner Lindy (Abby Cornish), even worse or Eddie decides to break off the relationship due to his lack of success in his writing career.
Walking down the New York St, he bumps into his ex-brother in law Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), after nine years. Vernon invites Eddie for a drink where he offers an unclassified brain drug for free as he is an old friend, after confessing to being being behind schedule on his book.
Ater taking the small pill, he arrives at the door of his apartment, bumping into his miserable land-lord's wife who immediately starts insulting him. The drug begins to take effect and Eddie uses the intelligence given to him by the drug to sway her into a nice conversation, then later leading to a sex scene.
Eddie gets into his apartment and realises the state he has been living in, so through a long process of cleaning up he clears the space in order to keep his mind settled on the book. He then sits on his laptop, and immediately words come straight to his head, and minutes later he finishes the first few chapters of the book and immediately hands it into his contractors.
Eddie then visits Vern at his apartment where he has been beaten with bloody marks over his face, he then explains the drug is called NZT48 and asks Eddie to pick up his drycleaning and get some food. On returning the door lock was broken and Vern is on the sofa dead with a bullet in his head and the apartment raided for the drug. Eddie panics and calls 911 straight away, where he then, while waiting or the police, searches for the NZT48 stash, of which he finds under the oven with a load of money and passports.
He hides these from the police who then take him to the station where he is interviewed for a short time. At the police station he is contacted by Melissa, his ex-wife organising a meeting after the death of her brother. With this money and new intelligence from the pill, he appears as a fresh new man and finishes the book within four days. He learns piano, cards, fitness, new languages, new friends and talks like a know-it-all about everything. One of his listeners, Kevin Doyle (Darren Goldstein), gives him a business card showing people are fully interested in his intelligence and wish to work with him. Long story short he is then invited to a jet-set beach party down south. Eddie then zooms around with a babe and a Maserati, then shows off by cliff diving from over 100 ft.
After this he realises that his intelligence is limitless and needs to use it to make money.
He slowly starts day trading from his laptop using websites such as Eay but needs to capitalize. A cafe owner sets him up with a Russian loanshark, Gennady (Andrew Howard). The Russian hands him $100,000 however, he is not a man to be messed around with, threatening his life if not payed back by deadline.
Eddie then starts stock trading where he impressively earns $2million within his first two weeks. Job offers and reporters come fighting for him as he earns massive amounts of money. Kevin Doyle offers a meeting with Carl Van Loon, and Eddie impresses his ex-partner Lindy, where they then get back together.
Eddie meets corporate raider Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro) who is a very successful business man in a restaurant. Carl, who is obviously impressed asks for his secret for success o which Eddie jokingly says he takes medication. In a limo Carl tests Eddie by asking him to review a file of different companies. Eddie guesses there is a major merger in the works impressing Carl, inviting him to another meeting.
He loses track of time as the pill starts to wear off showing the side effects, loss of time, sickness etc... The next morning was another important meeting with Carl, however where the pill has worn off, Eddie could not focus, did not understand the subject and was constantly distracted by the tv of a murder report for the woman he slept with the night before creating a mystery behind Eddie.
As Eddie starts to feel worse and worse, feeling nausious and exhausted he tries to contact Vernon's previous customers who had taken the pill, however, all of the contacts were either sick or dead. He tries one last number and realises the man sitting behind him is spying, as his phone rings. Eddie immediately leaves to meet his ex-wife Melissa.
Melissa (Anna Friel) admits to taking the NZT drug, she breathes heavily and is very weak. She tried to quit it, then found out from Vern other users have died. She then warns him of the side effects of quiting, however there is only one result... death.
The Russian investor then finds Eddie giving him the package of money for Eddie to start making alot of money in business. Eddie is then followed and then chased by the mysterious man who has been spying on him for the past couple of days, sick, exhausted and injured he runs into Lindy's office. Eddie admits he needs the drugs after explaining why he has been acting this way the whole time, and warns her without the drug, the results are fatal. His main stash is in Lindy's house, she recovers the plastic bag.
In the taxi on the way back to the office, she is chased and attacked by the mysterious man again, who is desperate to acquire the pills, killing two men in the park as she sprints for her life. On the phone she panics and asks Eddie for guidance and forces her to take the pill, from this boost of intelligence shes fights off the man and escapes.
She realises that the drug takes over Eddie's personality and leaves him again.
Eddie is then confronted by the Russian investor threatening him for money, however Eddie decides to provide him with the NZT, of which has a bad effect later on in the movie.He then hires two bodyguards to hold off the investor for a while, they have a tattoo on there middle finger which is significant later on.
Eddie then realises their won't be enough drugs to last, therefor he hires a chemist to modify the drug to take out it's side effects.
Eddie goes to buy an $8.5M secure condo, one of the most secure apartments in the city to hide from the investors, however he catches on when Eddie receives a package with his bodyguards hands inside.
At the office Carl and Eddie meet Hank Attwood's wife, she tells him he is in the hospital but the deal will close when he gets better. On the street he notices Mrs.Attwood's limo driver is the mysterious man from the parkette and realizes Attwood must be an NZT user also.
Back at his new condo, Eddie has been found by the Russian investor who has brought his friends, armed and ready to kill him. Eddie goes to the balcony edge and is ready to kill himself again, back to the start of the film, as he is about to jump he suddenly remembers where one last NZT pill is and scavaenges through his boxes to retrieve it, however the Russians break in. The Russian shoots up the last pill via needle and begins to threaten Eddie with slow painful torture. With one final thrust Eddie manages to turn the tables killing the Russian and grumsomely drinking the bloody to gain the pills effects, where he then kills the other two thugs.
At the hospital Hank Attwood dies. Eddie meets the parkette thug in the waiting room, who, now that his boss was dead, allows Eddie to search Brandt's safe where he finds his pills packet.
12 months later Eddie's book is published. He is running for office and meets Carl in his campaign office. Carl hints that he knows how Eddie has done it and has shut down his lab. Carl will guarantee a limitless supply in return for some future inside information. Eddie aggressively comes back, showing off his abilities he says he is off NZT and doesn't need it as he pushes Carl away. At an upscale Chinese restaurant Eddie and Lindy are together again.
Overall Rating: 4/5
