Doing drugs will make you famous and rich.

I finally got to seeing Bradley Cooper’s latest film, Limitless. Geez, I remember Cooper from his Alias days, back when he was a scruffy sidekick doomed to play out scruffy side-characterdome in television land forever.


Only, I guess Cooper cheated his way out of forever. Probably by using NZT.

I’m not sure what it is about Cooper that screams TOOL to me.


Spoiler alert for anyone who cares that much about the ending or basic plot lines to LIMITLESS.

Cooper headlines Limitless, a film in which he, a struggling writer living like a bum off of his editor girlfriend, is offered a drug that will allow him to "access all of his brain". Cooper takes NZT, which gives him nearly a photographic memory (and the ability to remember things from way back in his past, like the title of a book he glimpsed on a law grad student’s desk in college while they were having sex) and the ability to soak up and store EVERYTHING he reads and hears. He can grasp every option, every move, hundreds of moves before anything needs to happen.

He makes millions in the stock market.
He is offered a job by some serious market players.
He finishes his book in three days.

But hey, guys, there are cons to drugs, too.
He also takes so much NZT that he starts skipping time, finding himself across town with no recollection of the last 15 hours.
He has a limp. And now the news is saying some girl met foul play last night and a man with a limp was seen leaving the scene.
He discovers that everyone previously on NZT is either very sick today or dead.

This is where the movie loses steam.
It brought its main character on all the highs of the drug – Life is beautiful! I am smart. IM ON DRUGS! WOOOOO!
And the lows – how did I get from having sex with this beautiful lady in Queens to making millions on another brilliant stock move today? Possible murder. Mayhem. I might get sick and die.

The script ends, like an unexpectedly unfinished train track.
Oh, say the writers, we have to finish this some how. Okay……ideas?
So their main character defeats an enemy and they roll "18 months later" across the screen.
Cooper’s running for Senate. An old enemy returns, reveals he knows about NZT, the secret behind cooper’s success.
Wherein cooper reveals (bluffs?) he’s not on NZT anymore. He’s still as smart as NZT made him, but he doesn’t need the pill.
I WIN.

See, I’m a big fan of substance in my movies. I like some peanut butter and oatmeal, something to crunch on in my cookies.
What exactly is the message to Limitless here? Drugs are good as long as you take enough to keep a permanent high and then wean yourself off the actual product?
This is the same problem I had with Clooney’s Up in the Air. It had a peanut butter oatmeal subject, but just treated it like fluffy dough and never cooked it. That film ultimately had nothing to say about it’s main character’s life (other than maybe it was a little lonely) and his impact (as a person who’s job it is to fire others) on everyone around him. But at least, Clooney had some character growth. He realized he was lonely.
Cooper ends his journey with a better haircut and heavier coffers.

It seemed like Limitless copped out to being just another action flick, where it had the subject matter and vehicle to be something and say something more.

on another note:

What do you all use to upload pictures to OD? I used to use Image Shack but for some reason that doesn’t seem to work anymore. I don’t particularly want to use Flikr, Photobucket. I just want a shelf on the internet I can use to host my altered images of Bradley Cooper’s face and photos of sexy mannequins.