I know how Eddie Morra feels.
Like him, I know almost everything, but have forgotten most of it.
Limitless is about Eddie's adventures after his ex-brother-in-law gives him a pill that suddenly puts his entire brain online.
He finishes his novel at typing speed. He wins at poker, invests in the market, and runs it up to millions. He fascinates a woman who had rejected him as a loser. He knows intuitively how to handle situations that used to baffle him. He is hailed as the Wall Street guru of the age.
Eddie is played by Bradley Cooper as a schlep who becomes a king. This sort of mental rags-to-riches progression has inspired a lot of movies. The difference here is that Eddie Mora remains himself before and after, and all that changes is his ability to recall everything he ever saw or heard.
Eddie grows entangled in three problems. One has to do with the source of the magic pills; the brother-in-law is no longer in a position to reveal it. The second has to do with a mob loan shark who liked being smart and wants to get that way again.
The third involves Carl Van Loon, played by Robert De Niro as one of the richest men in America.
He hires Eddie as an investment magician, Eddie loses his touch when he runs out of pills, he regains it, and so on. De Niro is not well used in the role, because he plays Van Loon straight and in one dimension. The twist at the end comes too late.
Bradley Cooper fits well into the two versions of Eddie Morra, and director Neil Burger does inventive visual effects in showing how time telescopes for Eddie and the answers to problems seem to materialize before his eyes.
A subplot about a murder, however, raises questions it doesn't answer, and all the quasi-criminal stuff seems a little perfunctory. The movie is not terrifically good, but the premise is intriguing.
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