Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
5/2/11
Ah,
the double-edged sword that is the test audience. Studios relentlessly
screen their films for randomly selected audiences before locking down
a final cut and make changes both large and small to accommodate their
tastes/whims. Sometimes, test audiences are a valuable wake-up call
for times when an actor has played his role too well for the indifferent
fate the screenplay assigned it, a character that seemed vital before any
film was shot is in fact useless, or the filmmakers have decided to end
their story with the lead character as a fetus strangling himself with
his umbilical cord. But other times, they tempt the studio to toss
out the point of what they were doing in the name of sending the most casual
possible viewers home happy. Case in point: Limitless,
Neil Burger's new thriller based on the aptly titled Alan Glynn novel “The
Dark Fields”. Casting Bradley Cooper as a failed writer who uses
an illegal drug to tap the fabled 90% of our brains we don't use, Limitless
gets off to a tremendous start before starting to run out of gas around
the halfway mark. And then, when it's starting to pull the nose up
for the big finish, the Reshoots kick in and drain all possible meaning
out of a story that, in novel form, was intended to be a cautionary tale.
I can't say how Limitless was supposed to end, but I can say that
it hits the ground with an astonishing thud in its current form, but remains
worth seeing for that crackerjack first hour, when Cooper proves more than
ever that he's a rising star, and Burger stages some absolutely crazy trick
shots. If only the movie could use 100% of ITS brain... or even half.
Dashing
Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) stands on a balcony ledge looking at the precipitous
drop into the street below. Behind him is an apartment full of dead
bodies and someone is banging on the door trying to break in. He
vows not to be taken alive as we flash back to a few weeks before.
Eddie is not nearly so dashing at this time, a sickly drunk finding reasons
not to work on a book whose advance he long since frittered away.
After his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) dumps him, he's approached by
Vernon Grant (Johnny Whitworth), the brother of his ex-wife Melissa (Anna
Friel), with a sample of a drug he claims is FDA approved that will help
Eddie finish his novel. In a moment of desperation, Eddie takes the
tablet of NZT, and in fact he finds his brain firing like no brain he's
aware of has fired before: he's able to make connections between
every piece of information he's ever come across, making him unbelievably
intuitive, creative and charming. But the effect wears off, and he
needs more, which Vernon is happy to supply in exchange for Eddie becoming
his gopher. Alas, he comes back to Vernon's apartment with his dry
cleaning to find the dealer murdered: Eddie tears the place apart
and finds a fairly large stash of NZT tablets, which he uses to finish
the book and begin to tape all of his unrealized potential. But with
each passing day, he also grows more and more ambitious, and he needs money
to execute his master plan. Simple: he masters the underlying
rhythms of investments and becomes a Wall Street tycoon, attracting the
attention of Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro), who brings him on board to
crack a super merger he's been struggling to complete. But this is
where the problems start, because NZT has side effects, most importantly
the fact that if you stop taking it, you'll end up either a shell of your
former self, like Melissa, or dead. And that doesn't even bring us
to the Russian mobster (Andrew Howard), who's shaking him down for his
own piece of the NZT pie.
Limitless
comes barreling out of the gate like one of Berger's propulsive vertigo
tracking shots through New York City. Cooper plays Eddie as such
a lovable loser and then does such a terrific job simulating the instant
firing of all his brain cells, that it's impossible not to get on board
with his adventure. The problem is that once we reach the point where
side effects like lost time in which he might possibly have murdered someone
kick in, Leslie Dixon's screenplay loses its nerve, instead focusing on
the Russian mobster angle and insisting that our hero can dodge any of
the drug's negative effects just as long as he takes it just right.
This has the odd effect of turning the movie into an enabler of its star,
and ultimately making the only problem with NZT the fact that sometimes
people we don't like as much as Eddie get their hands on it.
The
whole business with Van Loon's investment empire is a non-starter, and
while there's a fairly obvious twist involving the guy he's plotting the
merger with, otherwise it's mostly just boring guys in business suits spouting
Wall Street lingo that made me want to shut down the other 10% of my brain.
Once the plot circles back around to that ledge, there's a nifty and ghoulish
resolution to the Russian Mob subplot before climactic scenes I did confirm
were shot just a couple months before the movie's release let most of the
remaining air out of Limitless' tires by assuring us that Eddie
can have his cake and eat it too whenever he wants.
The
fact that many audiences (certainly many test audiences) won't mind is
a testament to just how good Cooper is in the role. He's certainly
loaded up on charm and comic timing in other roles, but never before been
this kind of leading man. Because the role calls for him to not only
create a lovable bum but then turn that guy into someone who's smarter,
sexier and cooler than anyone alive, it's no small feat to pull it off.
As previously mentioned, Berger's direction crackles with cinematic energy
until his movie becomes alternately boring and dumb. I'd love to
see that alternate ending, at least assuming it doesn't involve Eddie using
his brain power to strangle himself with his umbilical cord as a fetus... |
