limitless parent movie review

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Limitless | 2011 | PG-13 | - 6.7.5

SEX/NUDITY 6 - A man and a woman have sex: we see the man's bare lower legs as he lies on a bed and we hear the woman moaning as he climaxes (we do not see the woman). A man and a woman have sex in a nightclub bathroom: we see the woman's foot with her panties dangling around it propped on a sink and we hear moaning. ►  A woman takes a man to a hotel room, she unfastens her dress (we see the top portion of her bare chest), they kiss and fall onto the bed and sex is implied. A man and a woman kiss while taking off their clothes, they lie back on a sofa and continue to kiss (sex is implied). A man and a woman kiss in several scenes and in several places. ►  Men and women dance in a couple of club scenes and one shows a man and a woman dancing close together and moving suggestively. A woman caresses a man's face tenderly. ►  A man asks a woman to move in with him. A man talks about a teaching assistant that he was "trying to mate." A man talks about another man taking a "straight shot of sperm." ►  A man sits on a toilet and we see his underwear around his ankles. We see a female statue and the buttocks are visible. A man wearing a robe reveals a bit of his bare chest. A man's bare chest is shown when he wakes up in bed and we see him wearing only boxer briefs when he gets out of bed.

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A man is shot three times in the chest and falls back onto the ground (we see the holes open in his clothing and a bit of blood is visible). A man is shot: we hear the gun blast and see him fall to the floor (no blood is visible). ►  A man stabs another man in the stomach, he drives the knife deep in his abdomen, blood spurts and we see blood pool on the floor under the man after he falls dead. A man with a knife stabs two men; one man is stabbed and we hear a crunch and see blood spraying from his abdomen and the other is stabbed three times (we hear crunching but do not see blood). ►  A man with a hypodermic needle in his mouth stabs another man in the eye with it (the man screams, we see the needle sticking out of his eye and we see blood on and around his eye). A woman runs from a man and onto an ice skating rink, she lifts a young skater, twirls her around and her skates slash the man following her on the face (we see a large bloody gash on his cheek). ►  A dead man sits on a sofa with a large, bloody bullet hole in his forehead, blood splattered on his chest and blood and tissue on a chair near him. Two men lie motionless on an office floor (presumably dead but no wounds or blood are visible). A man pushes a piano into a man, breaking through a plate glass window and we see the man lying dead with blood on his face. ►  Blood pools on the floor under a dead man and moves toward an injured man, who licks up some of the blood. A man opens a box and we see the severed hands of two men inside (blood shown on the hands). We see the severed hands of two men locked inside a safe and one is posed in an obscene hand gesture. ►  A man is surrounded by other men in a train station and they fight with punches and kicks: he sticks his thumbs on one man's mouth, he strikes another men in the throat, he kicks another man in the groin and his leg is injured when he is kicked (no blood is evident). A man beats another man on the back and head with a TV. Two men hold a man and another man punches him in the stomach. A man shoves another man against a gate and then a door, and punches him in the stomach (the man falls to the floor). A man is bound and gagged and lies on a floor with another man sitting near him and holding a knife. ►  A man climbs into a taxi where a woman is, she gets out and runs, the man chases her and she hides among rocks in a park. A man runs from another man, they run through busy city streets, one man is nearly struck by a truck and the truck crashes into a car (no one is shown to be injured). ►  A man has a bruised face with bloody cuts on his nose and chest. A man is shown with a cut on his nose and bloody knuckles. We see blood on a knife. A man is shown with a large cut across his cheek. We see a man lying dead in a hospital bed and his face is covered with a sheet. ►  A man shoots around an apartment erratically trying to shoot someone that he cannot see. A man finds a dead man in an apartment; he panics when he hears a noise and arms himself with a golf club (no one is there). ►  A van crashes into the back of a taxi (we see the taxi driver being jolted but no injuries are shown). A man driving a fast car speeds through narrow streets, avoiding a pedestrian and a truck. ►  A man stands on a balcony ledge on a tall building and moves toward the edge preparing to jump. We hear pounding on a heavy door and men yelling on the outside. A man stands on a large rock formation over the ocean and dives in (he is unharmed). A man threatens another man, who grabs the threatening man's chest and tells him that his heart is racing. ►  A man opens a cloth wrap to show a number of knives, pliers and torture implements. ►  A man threatens another man and says, "I will cut you at the waist and peel your skin up over your head so you suffocate." A woman yells at and insults a man that owes her money. A man says, "The only thing I'd have an impact on it the sidewalk" while standing on a ledge high above the street. A man talks about "having a knife in your back." We hear that several people are either sick and in the hospital or dead. A woman talks about getting sick after taking a drug. A man tells another man, "I'll shoot you." A man tells another man, "You get hit by a car, you don't die." We hear that a man is in a coma and that he's dying. A man says he is going to "flay" another man. A man talks about wondering how long the large and small intestines are and threatens to open a man's abdomen to find out. We hear a news report about a woman having been found dead in a hotel room. ►  A man vomits twice on a sidewalk (we see vomit spraying from his mouth and hear gagging and splattering). Vomit splatters on a desk and on a man's hand and chest and we hear retching. ►  We see tissue and blood pulsing through a brain. We see the inside of a mouth and throat as a pill is being swallowed. We see a stylized image of a human skull and brain. A man has a splint on his finger. A man scrapes his feet with a pedicure implement. A man eats a piece of pizza while sitting on a toilet. A man's apartment is a filthy mess with old food lying around and dirty dishes piled in a sink. ►  A man finds his hotel room ransacked. A woman sounds frightened on the telephone and thinks someone is following her. A man is alarmed when he finds himself in a bar and doesn't remember getting there. A man stands in a line-up in a police station. A man stumbles and appears to be dizzy. A man's vision changes after he ingests a pill and then the scene becomes clearer and brighter. A man looks sick in several scenes. A man looks weak and uses a cane to walk.

LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word, a severed hand is posed in an obscene hand gesture, 14 scatological terms, 8 anatomical terms, 3 mild obscenities, name-calling (pathetic, constipating, anal retentive, cocky, careless), 6 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A man takes a designer drug in pill form in several scenes, a woman takes a designer drug in pill form, a man talks about upping the dosage of a pill he has been taking, a man injects himself in the arm with a drug (we see the needle puncture his arm) and we see many pill canisters on a counter top and pills are scattered around. A woman drinks a glass of champagne, a man pours himself a glass of alcohol and drinks it, a man drinks a beer, people drink beer at a bar, people drink wine in a restaurant with dinner and a man drinks a shot of alcohol in a bar. A man smokes a cigarette in a few scenes.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Success, failure, love, disappointment, discouragement, writer's block, pharmaceuticals, designer drugs, financial markets, infidelity, bribery, stock trading, politics, political contributions, self-sabotage, mergers and acquisitions, brain capacity, the Oracle of Delphi.

MESSAGE - It's amazing what you can do if you actually use your whole brain.

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated , Special , Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.

REVIEWS See ratings & reviews at Critics.com

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THE ASSIGNED NUMBERS Unlike the MPAA we do not assign one inscrutable rating based on age but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY , VIOLENCE/GORE & LANGUAGE on a scale of 0 to 10, from lowest to highest depending on quantity & context | more |

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, he knew everything, but forgot most of it.

Now streaming on:

I know how Eddie Morra feels. Like him, I know almost everything, but have forgotten most of it. We are told time and again that we use only a small portion of our brains and have enough left over to run nations in our down time. “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; ever see Cliff Robertson in “ Charly ” (1968)? 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. “Limitless” assumes that would be a benefit and make him rich, but what if most of what he ever saw or heard about Wall Street was wrong (as it usually is)?

The movie sidesteps the problem that what we need is more intelligence and a better ability to reason, not a better memory. For memory, modern man has Google. There’s no need to stumble over such technicalities, however; given its premise “Limitless” is passably entertaining. Abbie Cornish plays Lindy, the successful young professional woman who dumps Eddie as a loser and falls for him all over again when he becomes a winner. This is not sneaky on her part; there is every reason to dump the original Eddie and many good ones to return.

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. Don’t you suppose he could have been supplied with a quirk of his own? 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; it doesn’t really set out to explore what such a pill might really to do a person. “Limitless” only uses 15, maybe 20 percent of its brain. Still, that’s more than a lot of movies do.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Limitless (2011)

Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving a drug, violence including disturbing images, sexuality and language

105 minutes

Andrew Howard as Gennady

Anna Friel as Melissa

Robert De Niro as Carl Van Loon

Bradley Cooper as Eddie Morra

Abbie Cornish as Lindy

• Leslie Dixon

Based on a novel by

Directed by.

• Neil Burger

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The ultimate you-can-have-it-all fantasy — a pill allowing users to harness 100% of their brain power — turns into something close to a nightmare for a rags-to-riches author in the propulsive, unexpectedly funny thriller “ Limitless .” Director Neil Burger (“The Illusionist”) and screenwriter-producer Leslie Dixon (“Hairspray”) take a joint leap into different genre territory, mixing Tony Scott’s dazzle and Martin Scorsese’s Gotham darkness, with just a few stumbles along the way. Bradley Cooper makes further strides toward major stardom, spelling excellent early spring returns and socko vid play.

First seen standing on the ledge of a Manhattan high rise, trying to escape a gang of killers, Eddie Morra (Cooper) ponders — in extensive and generally witty voiceover narration — the classic irony that once you’ve realized your dreams, there are knives at your back. Pic winds back to the beginning, with Eddie at his lowest ebb as he struggles to write a long-overdue book. A chance encounter on the street with Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), the drug-dealing brother of Eddie’s ex-wife, Melissa (Anna Friel), triggers a total reboot of his life.

Popular on Variety

Vernon explains to the skeptical Eddie he’s repping a new drug, NZT-48, that taps into maximum brain activity, firing up all those synapses. He gives Eddie a pill, resulting in the first of several scenes combining a heady mixture of wit, hallucinatory visual effects and a clever cinematic means of getting into the head of the central character.

Though based on Alan Glynn’s somewhat obscure 2001 novel, “The Dark Fields ,” Dixon’s screenplay suggests a Philip K. Dick-style fiction — set in the present, with slight futurist twists — and is actually closer to the author’s spirit than the recent Dick adaptation “The Adjustment Bureau.” What makes the film so entertaining is its willingness to go far out, with transgressive touches and mind-bending images that take zoom and fish-eye shots to a new technical level, as the pill enables Eddie to experience astonishing new degrees of clarity, perception and energy.

Hooked, Eddie wants more, which means becoming Vernon’s errand boy until he finds the dealer brutally murdered. Eddie uncovers Vernon’s secret stash of NZT-48, and within days, he completes his book, masters the piano, works out like a stud and becomes fluent in a few languages (Cooper does a mean Italian and Mandarin). The catches? Making sure he doesn’t OD, getting past occasional blackouts and securing a steady supply of the drug. Plus, on-and-off g.f. Lindy (Abbie Cornish, underused) takes one look at her transformed guy in his Tom Ford suit and admits to feeling intimidated.

The film’s tone is momentarily thrown off by a poorly staged chase through Central Park, with Lindy trying to elude the so-called Man in Tan Coat (Tomas Arana), in a sequence that plays like a bad Brian De Palma spoof. More effective is the fable of Wall Street greed underlying the action, which develops engrossing layers thanks in no small part to the arrival of a re-energized Robert De Niro as financial tycoon Carl Van Loon.

De Niro and Cooper mix it up quite well, with the older thesp delivering possibly his best screen monologue in years as Van Loon portentously informs Eddie, whose sudden good fortunate has made him an ace stock trader, that he shouldn’t even think of trying to compete with him. Feeling heat from a bloodthirsty loan shark (Andrew Howard), Eddie sees his seemingly perfect world begin to implode, elevating the film to its most inspired, even crazed passage.

Going from grungy to ultra-suave with a corresponding shift in attitude, Cooper shows off his range in a film he dominates from start to finish. The result is classic Hollywood star magnetism, engaging auds physically and vocally, as his narration proves to be a crucial element of the pic’s humor. Howard registers strongly as a thug who maintains a disturbing credibility even at his most over-the-top, and Friel makes the most of a brief appearance warning Eddie of the drug’s potentially fatal side effects.

Cinematographer Jo Willems and a potent f/x team combine for a series of dazzling images that seek to alter visual perception in a way not seen since Scott’s “Deja Vu.” As if they’d taken a few pills of their own, editors Naomi Geraghty and Tracy Adams set a relentless tempo supported by Paul Leonard-Morgan’s keenly judged electronic score.

• Production: A Rogue Pictures release of a Relativity presentation in association with Virgin Produced of a Rogue, Many Rivers/Boy of the Year production in association with Intermedia Film. Produced by Leslie Dixon, Scott Kroopf, Ryan Kavanaugh. Executive producers, Tucker Tooley, Bradley Cooper, Jason Felts. Co-producer, Kenneth Halsband. Directed by Neil Burger. Screenplay, Leslie Dixon, based on the novel "The Dark Fields" by Alan Glynn.
• Crew: Camera (Technicolor prints, Arri widescreen, HD), Jo Willems; editors, Naomi Geraghty, Tracy Adams; music, Paul Leonard-Morgan; music supervisor, Happy Walters, Season Kent; production designer, Patrizia von Brandenstein; set decorator, Diane Lederman; costume designer, Jenny Gering; sound (Datasat/SDDS/Dolby Digital), Danny Michael; sound designer, Paul Urmson; supervising sound editors, Urmson, Lewis Goldstein; re-recording mixers, Tony Volante, Goldstein; special effects coordinator, Connie Brink; visual effects supervisors, Dan Schrecker, Tim Carras, Rocco Passionino, Christopher Scollard; visual effects, Comen VFX, Zoic Studios; stunt coordinator, Jeffrey Lee Gibson; fight coordinator, Ben Bray; line producer, Patty Long; assistant director, H.H. Cooper; second unit director, Garrett Warren; second unit camera, Richard Rutkowski; casting, Douglas Aibel. Reviewed at ICM screening room, Los Angeles, March 10, 2010. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 105 MIN.
• With: Eddie Morra - Bradley Cooper Carl Van Loon - Robert De Niro Lindy - Abbie Cornish Gennady - Andrew Howard Melissa - Anna Friel Vernon - Johnny Whitworth Man in Tan Coat - Tomas Arana Pierce - Robert John Burke Kevin Doyle - Darren Goldstein Morris Brandt - Ned Eisenberg With: T.V. Carpio, Richard Bekins. (English, Russian, Italian, Mandarin dialogue)

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Limitless – review

S ome sort of allegory about scientific developments and Faustian pacts, Neil Burger's ingenious, extremely violent thriller centres on Eddie Morra, a blocked writer who accidentally comes across an experimental drug that increases his brain power exponentially. As a result, he completes his novel, becomes a sought-after financial adviser to Wall Street's elite and a national celebrity. But there are serious side-effects, both physical and social, and he ends up a sick man, pursued by Russian mafiosi and the NYPD homicide bureau.

It's entertaining enough and unfolds in an extended flashback as Morra (played by Bradley Cooper, an actor with piercing blues eyes of the hypnotic Ralph Fiennes variety) stands teetering on the edge of a parapet, 40 floors above a New York street, contemplating suicide.

• The Observer
• Robert De Niro

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"“Better” Living Through Chemistry"

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(PaPa, Cap, FR, B, C, LL, VVV, S, N, AA, DDD, MM) Strong mixed pagan worldview with some capitalist content as man plays the free market to make money, although he uses a drug that helps his mind find algorithms for investment strategy that helps him make millions within weeks, plus some false religion where one character makes comment about person being able to use his entire brain power as “God” would, and some moral, redemptive elements, including another character says a young man’s skills are a “gift from God”; 12 obscenities, three profanities and one obscene gesture; some very strong violence combined with plenty of strong violence includes chase sequences, car crash, man considers committing suicide by standing on ledge of building, man’s body found after he was shot in the head, man beats up gang members in the subway, man vomits, people are stabbed, man’s cheek slashed, Russian gangsters beat man, implied that woman was slain in a hotel room, bodyguards’ hands are cut off and delivered in a mailbox, man, gunfire, gangster is shot, punching, kicking, man stabbed in eye with a needle, man drinks blood; sounds heard during depicted fornication and depicted adultery, unmarried kissing, implied fornication, and movie implies that a couple lived together out of wedlock; upper male nudity, man in underwear, female cleavage, women in bikinis, woman’s upper legs shown; strong alcohol use and drunkenness depicted; cigarette smoking depicted, movie implies man used to deal illegal drugs and plot revolves around a drug that unlocks 100% of the human brain capacity although it carries addictive side effects and people have severe medical conditions as a result of using it; and, lying, blackmail, threats, breaking and entering, theft, greed, bribery, and man uses drug as shortcut to success.

More Detail:

LIMITLESS, based on a novel by Alan Glynn, stars Bradley Cooper as Eddie Morra, a down-on-his-luck writer who is given a revolutionary new drug that allows Eddie to access 100% of his brain capacity. (This is reminiscent of Harvard University lecturer in psychology Dr. Timothy Leary’s claims about LSD that swept first the Ivy League and then other college campuses in the 1960s, before LSD was criminalized in 1966.) As others come after Eddie’s newfound success, he quickly learns that being “limitless” has its price.

Months behind on his rent and weeks past his book deadline, Eddie is on the verge of losing his girlfriend, his home and his career. When a chance encounter with his former brother-in-law takes place, Eddie gets his hands on a groundbreaking pharmaceutical called NZT, a pill that opens a human being’s mind 100%. Fueled by NZT, Eddie quickly finishes his novel, learns new languages and gets his life back on track.

Next, Eddie uses his newfound intellect to take on Wall Street. He takes a small loan from a Russian mobster and parlays thousands of dollars into millions within mere weeks. His get-rich-quick techniques garner the attention of major heavy-hitters on Wall Street. Soon, Eddie is working with a broker (Robert DeNiro) on the largest corporate merger in history.

However, Eddie’s life is not completely smooth sailing. As NZT’s side effects, such as massive blackouts begin, Eddie finds himself as the suspect of a murder scandal, the lynchpin of a major corporate take-over, and the target of a Russian mobster who wants Eddie’s NZT for himself. With time, as well as his supply of NZT, running out, Eddie must use all his inexhaustible intellect to get out alive.

LIMITLESS has an excellent idea behind the story – a hard-luck failure gets an opportunity to access endless intellect – yet the plot does not fully deliver on this imaginative idea. As sheer popcorn fodder, the movie is good but not tremendous. Bradley Cooper is very good. He captures Eddie’s full character arc with both charm and intensity. The third act, however, takes a dark, violent turn that takes away from the movie’s popcorn appeal. The final resolution is satisfying, but the violence and immorality ultimately overshadow the outcome.

The movie contains a mostly mixed, pagan worldview with a lot of violence, especially some graphic bloodletting in the final act. It also has some foul language, gratuitous sensuality and a lot of miscellaneous immorality such as lying, blackmail, theft, greed and bribery as well as an overall storyline centered around drug use, the NZT pharmaceutical.

Older, more mature media-wise audiences may enjoy the basic storyline of LIMITLESS, but the movie’s negative content will definitely limit its overall appeal. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution. Please see our CONTENT section for more details regarding the movie’s content.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

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Rent Limitless on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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Although its script is uneven, Neil Burger directs Limitless with plenty of visual panache, and Bradley Cooper makes for a charismatic star.

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Neil Burger

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Limitless: Some Thoughts About the Film

Would you take a pill to have "limitless" mental ability.

Posted November 21, 2011

I didn't get a chance to see to see the film Limitless when it was in theatres, but I recently saw it on the small screen. Before I talk about it, though if you haven't seen it, here's an overview, from IMDB :

An action-thriller about a writer who takes an experimental drug that allows him to use 100 percent of his mind. As one man evolves into the perfect version of himself, forces more corrupt than he can imagine mark him for assassination. Out-of-work writer Eddie Morra's (Cooper) rejection by girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) confirms his belief that he has zero future. That all vanishes the day an old friend introduces Eddie to NZT, a designer pharmaceutical that makes him laser focused and more confident than any man alive. Now on an NZT-fueled odyssey, everything Eddie's read, heard or seen is instantly organized and available to him. As the former nobody rises to the top of the financial world, he draws the attention of business mogul Carl Van Loon (De Niro), who sees this enhanced version of Eddie as the tool to make billions. But brutal side effects jeopardize his meteoric ascent... Written by Relativity Media

Note that the concept that we normally only "use a small percentage of our brains" isn't accurate, so a drug that enables us to use "100%" doesn't make sense. Below is this summary from Wikipedia about this myth and its inaccuracy (and yes, I know that Wikipedia isn't always correct, but in this case it's close enough. Here's a link to a Scientific American article about the topic):

Scientific accuracy At the start of the film a marijuana dealer says that we can only access 20% of our brain (and that NZT lets a person access all of it), referring to a common myth . The mechanism of how the drug actually works is never scientifically explained in the film. Neurologist Barry Gordona describes the myth as laughably false, adding, "we use virtually every part of the brain, and that [most of] the brain is active almost all the time",[9] and neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein has set out seven kinds of evidence refuting the ten percent myth.[10] Physics professor James Kakalios said it was plausible that medical science could improve intelligence , but that neurochemistry is not advanced enough for it to be achieved currently. Kakalios also said the notion used in the film that human beings can only access 10% of their brains is a myth : 100% of it is used at different times. Kakalios said if such a pill existed, a person running out of the supply could actually experience a rebound effect .[11] This is alluded to in the movie, as the protagonist's ex-wife explains that she can't concentrate for more than 10 minutes at a time after coming off the drug.

But that's not what I want to address. I was fascinated by several aspects of the film, particularly the idea of being able to obtain enhanced mental abilities-in essence, a superpower-and its consequences. Medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are sometimes referred to as cognitive enhancers or neuroenhancers because of their ability to help people focus their attention by "enhancing" their baseline level of attention.

If each person could have his or her mental abilities enhanced with medication , what might that mean for society? If all of us could obtain the same superpower, would it be a superpower? To paraphrase Dash from the film The Incredibles , if everyone is special, then in a way, no one is. Of course if such an enhancement pill or procedure were available, the likely reality is that it wouldn't be available to all of us.

If it's only available to some of us, though, then it's not playing "fair" for those special recipients to use it for an advantage. Yet if it were possible to do mental exercises to enhance mental ability (such as reading, attending classes, doing special logic puzzles), that would probably seem fair to most people, as long as these mental exercises were available to all who wanted them (and cost wasn't a barrier–there could be scholarships). Doing such exercises means earning the enhanced abilities. Putting in time and effort. It's analogous to the practice involved to play an instrument at a high level or to be an elite athlete . Such folks may start out with a certain level of talent, but they earn their way into high level so achievement.

What can rankle about the enhanced ability of the protagonist in Limitless is that he didn't earn the ability. He took a mental "steroid" to boost his performance and took advantage of it. He played dirty.

Copyright 2011 by Robin S. Rosenberg. All rights reserved.
Robin S. Rosenberg is a clinical psychologist. Her website is DrRobinRosenberg.com and she also blogs on Huffington Post . Her most recent book is The Psychology of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo .

Robin S. Rosenb erg , Ph.D. , has taught psychology at Lesley University and Harvard University. She is the editor of the anthology The Psychology of Superheroes .

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Movie review: ‘Limitless’

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Very early on in “Limitless,” a psychological tease about a pharmaceutically enhanced brainiac, star Bradley Cooper is teetering on the thin rail of a high-rise balcony contemplating one of those jumps that guarantees the sweet hereafter.

It turns out to be as good a metaphor for Cooper as it is for his character, Eddie Morra; both are courting considerable risks in director Neil Burger’s wannabe thriller about a super-pill that will make anyone who takes it super smart.

For Cooper, the question was: Could he play smart-Eddie? He comes close enough to suggest there is something more to the actor than just smirking arrogant handsome guy, which until now has been the definition of most of his characters, notably his breakout role in “The Hangover.” For Eddie, it’s more a management issue — can he handle the high-octane, mind-over-matter life he’s suddenly got?

But smart isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and soon the movie is unraveling faster than all of Eddie’s grand schemes. The pill may be new, but the lessons are old — all drugs have side effects and all the smarts in the world don’t keep you from making dumb decisions. The latter, perhaps something the filmmakers should have paid more mind to.

Burger, who crafted 2006’s likable period drama, “The Illusionist,” with Ed Norton as a magician, has got a lot more illusions to create here in trying to bring novelist Alan Glynn’s “The Dark Fields” to the big screen. Leslie Dixon’s screenplay has streamlined the book, merged some characters and complications, and given it a Hollywood ending that dispenses with most of the morality clauses that the novelist used to counterbalance the aphrodisiac of brilliance.

Abbie Cornish is his on-and-off girlfriend. Robert De Niro is a corporate merger heavy who wants a piece of smart-Eddie, and then wants a piece of the smart-pill action. They are there essentially to play angel versus devil on Eddie’s shoulder while he contemplates the power and the possibilities of always being the smartest guy in the room.

But the fundamental difficulty is that so much of Glynn’s story lives in Eddie’s mind. What does smart look like? How does it feel? Glynn uses up a lot of words answering that.

It’s not as easy to do with a camera lens, though director of photography Jo Willems tries to keep it interesting and intense and have a little fun with it too. Sometimes Eddie finds himself walking through a thunderstorm of letters raining down around him, or watching as the ceiling tiles spin like a slot machine, with numbers everywhere. And sometimes Eddie’s brain is working so fast that he gets ahead of himself — literally — with both of us (audience and Eddie) able to see multiple Eddies, trailing neon streaks of energy like a comet, as he pushes the boundaries of this brave new world made possible by the super-drug, named NZT if you care and not, I repeat not, FDA approved.

In addition to giving smart a shape and form, there’s a story to tell and too much is done via a voice-over narration by Cooper. At first Eddie is a disheveled and failing writer; so a writer. A shady old friend he hasn’t seen in years slips him a tab of help, a little piece of temptation that will unleash the 90% of his brain he hasn’t been using (it’s the scientific average, with humanity typically turning on only about 10% of our intellectual wattage, or so we’re told).

After Eddie takes an NZT tab, he writes a novel in one night. A few more pills and he’s speaking a couple of foreign languages, day-trading, then brokering mega-mergers, which is where De Niro’s mogul, a guy named Van Loon, comes in. Also the shady friend (I think the technical term is “dealer”) is dead, there is a skin-peeling loan shark with an Eastern European accent after him, and Eddie’s stash of pills is shrinking.

The disappointment is that for all of the possibilities, “Limitless” never gets beyond “limited.” De Niro is playing Van Loon at the intersection of the “Meet the Fockers’” ex-CIA conspiracy-fueled father-in-law and his overbearing, self-righteous, daddy dearest of “This Boy’s Life.” Cornish is just playing pretty, but in that accessory way that ensures her Lindy has more warmth than depth. Best of the bunch by far is veteran British stage actor Andrew Howard, making an excellent skin-peeling villain and an equally excellent case for why bad guys should never be given smart pills.

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Former Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey is an award-winning entertainment journalist and bestselling author. She left the newsroom in 2015. In addition to her critical essays and reviews of about 200 films a year for The Times, Sharkey’s weekly movie reviews appeared in newspapers nationally and internationally. Her books include collaborations with Oscar-winning actresses Faye Dunaway on “Looking for Gatsby” and Marlee Matlin on “I’ll Scream Later.” Sharkey holds a degree in journalism and a master’s in communications theory from Texas Christian University.

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Movie Review | 'Limitless'

A Simple Prescription for Superior Powers

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By A.O. Scott

• March 17, 2011

Is there a cure for writer’s block? (And no, “get a real job” doesn’t count.) A recent article in The New Yorker profiles a therapist who treats struggling screenwriters for hundreds of dollars an hour. For centuries, poorer scribes (which is to say most of us) have preferred to rely on rituals and folk remedies. Sharpen 10 pencils. Eat a sandwich. Pretend that the first chapter of your long-overdue opus is a casual letter to your grandmother. Weep quietly. Have another drink.

More recently, drugs like Adderall have enjoyed a half-shadowy vogue among writers . The dream of a pharmaceutical solution to literary paralysis provides a wisp of a real-world premise for “Limitless,” an energetic, enjoyably preposterous compound — it’s a paranoid thriller blended with pseudo-neuro-science fiction and catalyzed by a jolting dose of satire — directed by Neil Burger. Since we’re on the subject of writers, we should note that the script, adapted from Alan Glynn’s novel “The Dark Fields,” is by Leslie Dixon, whose résumé (“Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Pay It Forward,” and the remakes of “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “The Heartbreak Kid”) suggests a life of disciplined productivity.

Such an existence eludes Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), whom we join — once he has flashed back from what looks like the brink of suicide through a breathless title sequence — in a bohemian mire of failure. Unshaven and unfocused, living in a grungy Chinatown walkup and frequenting the last bar in Manhattan that does not brew its own bitters and charge $20 for an artisanal cocktail, Eddie is stuck on Page 1 of a long-overdue novel.

Adding romantic insult to professional injury, his girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish), briskly dumps him. As she hands him back her keys, Lindy cues up some important exposition by reminding Eddie that he was married once, to Melissa (Anna Friel), whose brother, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), promptly runs into Eddie on the street, turns him on to a cool new drug and takes a fatal bullet to the brain.

Between the last two items in that series, Eddie swallows Vernon’s pill, a not-quite-legal substance called NZT, which allows him to tap into previously neglected areas of his brain. Supposedly, human beings — even writers! — use only a fraction of that mighty organ at a time, and the idea that we could, via a quick biochemical fix, have access to all of its powers raises many intriguing possibilities, a few of which “Limitless” sets out to explore.

Bradley Cooper’s Moment

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Mr. Burger, whose previous films include “The Illusionist,” an elegant and clever sleight-of-hand caper, unwinds Eddie’s story with a feverish, hyperactive clarity that mirrors the protagonist’s inner state. When NZT enters his bloodstream, the colors on the screen intensify, the focus tightens, and the image seems to warp, as if buckling under the sheer power of Eddie’s cognition .

He assimilates information by means of old-fashioned film editing — a fast shuffle of close-ups, usually resolving to a shot of Mr. Cooper’s Windex-blue eyes — and also through fancier tricks. As Eddie’s writer’s block breaks, letters float down from the ceiling of his apartment, recalling the cascading numbers of “A Beautiful Mind.”

But Eddie’s mind is not an altogether pretty place. Mr. Cooper has a special gift for impersonating a certain type of ordinary guy — handsome, smart and friendly enough, but also kind of a jerk. More than “The Hangover” or, goodness knows, “All About Steve,” “Limitless” is a showcase for his gift of exemplary just-above-averageness. He is pitiable as a loser, despicable as a winner and curiously likable through all the intervening stages.

Granted the Promethean bounty of unlimited intelligence, what does Eddie do? Just what any other shallow, striving 21st-century American man would be likely to do: make more money, have more sex and write a book, though not quite in that order. The book turns out to be something of a red herring — or rather, one of many plot points that the movie picks up, drops behind the radiator, trips over and sends flying across the room as it runs its hectic course.

The expansion of Eddie’s mental capacity does not lead to any corresponding growth in wisdom or imagination. Quite the contrary: the more clearly and quickly he thinks, the shallower he becomes. To be sure, he learns to play the piano and picks up fluency in a smattering of foreign languages and high-flown cultural idioms, but these skills are mostly useful in getting women to sleep with him. And the cultural knowledge that is most handy comes from the kung fu movies and boxing matches he suddenly remembers from childhood when he is attacked by a bunch of thugs on a subway platform one night.

In keeping with Eddie’s predicament — and the drug has its downsides, of course — “Limitless” has a little too much on its mind. To maintain a sense of velocity and complication, it throws Eddie into trouble with a Russian loan shark (Andrew Howard), a couple of murders and a Wall Street tycoon with the Seussian name Van Loon. As Van Loon, Robert De Niro twinkles with menace but does not really have much to do, and he robs screen time from Ms. Cornish, who vanishes from the movie for unconscionably long stretches.

That is not because of Lindy’s good sense — she goes back to Eddie as soon as he cuts off his ratty ponytail and buys some new clothes — but because the filmmakers seem to have misplaced their supply of coherence pills. Too many matters, medical and otherwise, go unexplained, and the intimations of grand conspiracy that pursue Eddie don’t quite pay off the way you want them to.

But what “Limitless” lacks in structural neatness it makes up for in energy and antic, bristling wit. It’s an unexpectedly funny movie, and for a while this seems mainly like a function of Mr. Cooper’s charm.

Eddie’s fate, however, turns out to be a barbed and nasty joke, and at the last moment the film reveals itself to have been a seductively cynical, sharp-eyed comic fable for an age of greed and speed. It suggests that evolution has given us extraordinary brains, and that if someone could only take hold of this gift, there is no telling what he might do: engineer a corporate merger, run for political office, buy a huge apartment, order food at a restaurant in a foreign language.

Finish a piece of writing on deadline. Nothing would ever be the same.

“Limitless” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Violence, sexuality and the consumption of prodigious quantities of an imaginary drug.

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Neil Burger; written by Leslie Dixon, based on the novel “The Dark Fields,” by Alan Glynn; director of photography, Jo Willems; edited by Naomi Geraghty; music by Paul Leonard-Morgan; production design by Patrizia von Brandenstein; costumes by Jenny Gering; produced by Ms. Dixon, Scott Kroopf and Ryan Kavanaugh; released by Relativity Media. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes.

WITH: Bradley Cooper (Eddie Morra), Abbie Cornish (Lindy), Robert De Niro (Van Loon), Anna Friel (Melissa), Johnny Whitworth (Vernon) and Andrew Howard (Gennady).

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Limitless: movie review

In action-thriller 'Limitless,' Bradley Cooper plays a struggling writer who stumbles upon a brain-enhancing drug that radically changes his life.

• By Peter Rainer Film critic

March 18, 2011

What would you do if you could take a pill and suddenly access 100 percent of your brain power? This is the premise behind “ Limitless ,” a sci-fi thriller that looks as if its makers utilized around 30 percent of theirs.

Bradley Cooper plays Eddie Morra , a would-be novelist whose life changes radically when he is introduced to NZT, an experimental, black-market pharmaceutical that allows him to remember everything he ever read or experienced, learn new languages in a day, master complex equations in a blink, mastermind Wall Street , and, presumably, decipher the plot of “Inception.”

Since nothing this powerful comes without a price, Eddie is soon scrambling to replenish his supply (the effects of one pill wear off within a day or so) and fight off the mobsters who are wise to his wisdom. Meantime, his shiny girlfriend Lindy ( Abbie Cornish ), who had written Eddie off as a deadbeat, reconnects with her newfound brainiac. He also attracts the attention of Wall Street mogul Carl Van Loon ( Robert De Niro ), who resembles a cross between Warren Buffet and a smiling cobra.

Is the fact that Eddie applies his brain power almost exclusively to the financial sector, as opposed to, say, curing cancer or ending world hunger, intended as some kind of social commentary by director Neil Burger and writer Leslie Dixon ? Or, as I suspect, is it just that their conception of intelligence isn’t very intelligent? Grade: C (Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving a drug, violence including disturbing images, sexuality and language.)

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• Relativity Media

Summary Out-of-work writer Eddie Morra's rejection by girlfriend Lindy confirms his belief that he has zero future. That all vanishes the day an old friend introduces Eddie to MDT, a designer pharmaceutical that makes him laser focused and more confident than any man alive. Now on an MDT-fueled odyssey, everything Eddie's read, heard or seen is ... Read More

Directed By : Neil Burger

Written By : Leslie Dixon, Alan Glynn

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• Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• March 18, 2011
• Bradley Cooper as Eddie Morra; Robert De Niro as Carl Van Loon; Abbie Cornish as Lindy; Andrew Howard as Gennady; Anna Friel as Melissa

Home Release Date

• July 19, 2011
• Neil Burger

Distributor

• Rogue Pictures

Movie Review

Eddie Morra looks like a guy down on his luck. It’s not that he’s living in a cardboard box or anything. I mean, in truth he’s even got a contract to write a book. But the tattered and scraggly would-be writer just can’t seem to wake up from the perpetual funk that sends him wandering the streets by day and prevents him from writing a single word by night.

Then, in a chance encounter, he runs across his drug-dealing former brother-in-law, Vernon.

Now, Vern isn’t necessarily a giving guy. But he knows the value of a free sample. So he offers Eddie a hit of a brand-new neural stimulant called NZT-48. It’s a small transparent pill that looks as innocuous as a drop of melted candle wax. But it’s much more.

Eddie’s told we only use about 20% of our brain’s actual potential. But this lump of clear wonder that he pops in his mouth is designed to instantaneously fire up all the receptors, synapses and pathways in the rest of it. And within moments the everyman shlump gets hit full-force with a whole new astonishing degree of roaring mental clarity.

Everything he casually encounters is instantly retained. Any memory or thought that’s ever dribbled into the recesses of his mind is at his beck and call. And when a stash of NZT falls in his lap, Eddie starts doing wondrous things: He writes his book in days. Becomes a virtuoso musician. Masters other languages without even trying. Begins making money hand over fist. And burns as the white-hot center of attention at every party he attends.

Of course even a white-hot genius is bound to run into trouble when you mix together Russian thugs, Wall Street bigwigs, desperate addicts and the inevitable side effects of a designer drug.

Positive Elements

Eddie’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, Lindy, is actually the most sincere character we meet. She truly loves Eddie and wants to be with him, but repeatedly realizes that it’s not possible. Lindy reaches out to help Eddie when he’s in trouble, but walks away when he refuses to pull back from the drugs.

Eddie’s ex-wife, Melissa, initially refuses to meet with him when he needs her. But she finally does in an effort to confront him with the dangers of the drug. (She took it for a while, and it almost killed her.) She begs him to free himself before it’s too late.

Spiritual Elements

When Eddie starts making impressive gains on Wall Street, a newspaper columnist compares him to Houdini and God.

Sexual Content

A pool scene features a number of bikini-clad women. We see both Vernon and Eddie bare-chested in different scenes. Eddie gets out of bed wearing only underwear.

When Eddie is high, he’s able to seduce just about any woman he comes in contact with. We see him kissing and fondling several in snapshot-like vignettes. We see similarly quick snippets of him having sex with three different women. (The camera shows isolated or intertwined arms and legs, and a bit of motion.) In once case, Eddie seduces his landlord’s wife. In another, a stranger he picks up at a club begins to take her dress off. He and Lindy kiss, and it’s implied that they resume their active sex life after getting back together.

Conversations include comments about sperm and condoms.

Violent Content

A Russian mobster threatens to slice Eddie at the waist and peel his skin up over his head. And while laying out an array of bladed instruments the man also suggests that he will slice out Eddie’s intestines and see if they stretch out to 20 feet like the medical books say.

In the midst of a struggle with the thugs, Eddie stabs one man in the chest with a large knife and spits a hypodermic needle into another’s eye. The stabbed man dies and bleeds out in a large pool of blood, and the blinded man proceeds to shoot wildly, killing a fellow mobster by mistake. Before it’s over, the man crashes through a large window, propelled to his death by a grand piano. Somebody else is shown with a bullet hole in his forehead, blood streaming down his face and chest. Eddie opens a package and discovers the severed hands of his two bodyguards inside.

Eddie is attacked by a group of men in the subway. In a protracted battle the drug helps him access memories of fighting films, which he uses to better batter and pummel his bloodied foes. (His only wounds are skinned knuckles.) A man chases a woman through the park and viciously stabs two passersby who step forward to protect her. She finally defends herself by slashing him with a little girl’s ice skate. (With the girl still wearing it.)

Eddie stands on the edge of a high-rise balcony as if to jump to his death. It’s reported on a news show that a woman has been murdered in a local hotel, and it appears that Eddie is the killer.

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word. Six or eight s-words. “A‑‑,” “h‑‑‑” and “b‑‑ch” are also exercised. God’s name is abused a couple of times. Jesus’ at least once. One of the severed hands is posed in such a way that it makes an obscene gesture.

Drug and Alcohol Content

The movie, of course, centers around Eddie repeatedly taking the make-believe drug NZT. We see him handling it and swallowing it in numerous scenes. Desperate for a fix at a climactic moment, he goes so far as to lap up the pooled blood of a dead gangster who had the drug in his system.

Various other characters take the drug as well, including Lindy (who is compelled to swallow a pill in order to think her way out of a life-threatening situation) and the Russian mob guy Gennady (who injects a liquefied version into his arm).

There are a few negative effects of the drug on display. Eddie suffers from blackouts and time gaps in his memory. We see him in a drawn, haggard withdrawal state. His ex-wife appears to be physically ill and frail some time after quitting it. And other users have reportedly grown sick or died because of it.

The cure? To keep taking it, apparently.

Percocet and other prescription drugs get mentions and screen time. Eddie smokes a cigarette and we see him drinking beer and glasses of alcohol with friends in several bar scenes. Eddie, Lindy and other diners drink wine with dinner. Vernon consumes a few glasses of alcohol.

Other Negative Elements

A flashback memory of a drunken Eddie shows him vomiting on a former boss’s desk. In the present he vomits in the street.

There’s something appealing about Eddie Morra’s story and the way the creators of Limitless have slyly splashed it across the screen. The idea entertains, the characters ring true and the script reels us in with clever dialogue and a steady pace. In spite of the fact that his quest for mental brilliance results in him popping pills like some kind of reverse PEZ dispenser—and therefore make him vulnerable to the blackmailing, life-threatening tactics of high-finance corporate cowboys and street-level gangster lowlifes alike—we want to see poor Eddie prevail.

After all, we’ve all been raised in this modern era of uncannily effective pharmaceuticals. So it’s actually pretty easy to identify with Eddie’s choice. Would you take a tiny tablet and be a person capable of anything, or refrain and remain the mentally road-blocked chump you’ve always been?

Clearly, Limitless wants moviegoers to ask themselves that question. Eddie even comes right out with it point-blank in narration mode. And, obviously, the downsides—blackouts, sickness and death—should be enough to weight your answer in the right direction. But caution isn’t necessarily the angle that’s most vividly on display here. The film uses creative camera perspectives and imaginative cinematography to help illustrate Eddie’s brand-new self-awareness. And it all looks really, really cool. Appealing , as I said earlier.

Might one, the movie nudges us with the idea, effectively manage a drug-fueled life by expertly avoiding all the nasty social and moral pitfalls that a life of addiction might realistically produce? If handled with just the right finesse and purified with the proper mental acuity, might the payoff trump the risks?

It shouldn’t take 100% of your brainpower, then, to realize that in spite of the creative twists and the cinematic flourishes, Limitless plays out as something of a drug-glorifying fib. It’s the sort of nonsense that can only feel realistic in the self-deceiving recesses of an addict’s mind. Or, of course, in a Hollywood movie.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Sightless Parent Guide

This horror flick has an interesting premise and clever execution, but using disability as a source of horror is morally questionable..

Netflix: Ellen was blinded in a brutal attack, and has withdrawn to acclimate to her new non-visual reality. But as she spends more time alone, unable to see, she becomes convinced that her attacker is back to finish the job - and no one will believe her.

Release date January 20, 2021

Run Time: 89 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by keith hawkes.

Ellen (Madelaine Petsch) is struggling. Her ex-husband is in prison for at least 15 years after defrauding basically everyone they know, leaving her alone and friendless. Her isolation only deepens when an assault leaves her completely blind. Her brother, who is currently in Japan on business, arranges for her to have at-home care in a new apartment with an expert in helping the recently disabled – Clayton (Alexander Koch). But without her sight, Ellen becomes increasingly fearful. Her other senses are highly tuned, and the trauma that resulted from the attack triggers paranoia. Nightmares and hallucinations lead her to doubt everything she thinks she knows – and some things just aren’t stacking up.

This is an interesting premise for a horror movie, and parts of it are cleverly executed. Sightless experiments with an “unreliable narrator” in that what you see on screen isn’t what actually happens: it’s what Ellen thinks is happening. The disconnect between the two creates a space for the filmmakers to slip in some interesting scares, and for the plot to confront the audience with their own expectations.

But Sightless is hardly a brave new frontier in horror films. I dislike horror movies that rely on disabilities as a plot point. It neglects the fact that millions of people cope just fine with a variety of conditions that cause them to live life differently; that not every “disability” is actually life-destroying. Films like this leave the impression that the real “scare” is just something that (in the real world) plenty of people can live and thrive with and I don’t like that the horror is focused on the disability itself. This just doesn’t sit well with me.

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Keith hawkes, watch the trailer for sightless.

Sightless Rating & Content Info

Why is Sightless rated TV-14? Sightless is rated TV-14 by the MPAA

Violence: Various individuals are beaten, cut, bludgeoned, tasered, and blinded with chemicals. There is also an unsuccessful suicide attempt which is shown twice and which results in no serious injury. Sexual Content: A female character is shown naked from the shoulders up in the shower in a non-sexual context. Profanity: There is one use of extreme profanity and occasional minor cursing and terms of deity. Alcohol / Drug Use: Adult characters are shown drinking and smoking cigarettes.

Page last updated October 2, 2021

Sightless Parents' Guide

Ellen’s life changes forever when she is blinded. Do you know anybody with a serious disability? What strategies do they use the work around it? What can you do to be more educated on these issues? What kind of policies would improve life for those who live with these challenges?

What is Lana’s relationship like? How does it change through the film? What do her choices say about her character? What do they say about her life?

Ellen has trouble telling between reality and trauma-induced nightmares. What are some other symptoms of PTSD? What are the causes? What kind of resources are available for individuals struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder?

Related home video titles:

Another recent film which plays with similar themes is Invisible Man . Horror films which center around sensory deprivation and blindness include Don’t Breathe and Bird Box .

Disability receives more nuanced treatment in The Upside , Music Within , Breathe , Father Soldier Son , and the documentary Crip Camp .

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Based on 3 parent reviews

Surprisingly good!

Report this review, interesting concept, a must watch show.

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