Sunday, February 5, 2012

Netflix Recommendation: Limitless

Of course I was drawn to Limitless when I read the Netflix description:

With his writing career dragging and his girlfriend casting him off, Eddie Morra's life turns around when he takes a drug that provides astonishing mental focus -- but its deadly side effects threaten his future.

I watched it last night -- put it in at 11, and it's just under two hours, and it held my attention and awakeness even though I was in bed with the lights off. It's a good psychological thriller.

When the movie opens, the star, Bradley Cooper (in the picture) is a writer with a book contract and he can't focus, his apartment looks like it's from "Hoarders" and his girlfriend breaks up with him. He hasn't written a word for three months and he's broke too. Then he bumps into his ex-brother in law on the street who gives him this pill he claims will let him access 100% of his brain (as opposed to the 20% we supposedly use) and give him total focus. He thinks it's BS but he tries it. Within 30 seconds, he's running home, scrubs his apartment and writes 90 pages of his book which his editor loves.

Well, of course, this goodness can't continue and all sorts of complications arise. Especially since the effects of the pill wear off in 24 hours so he has to get more. I am not a science fiction fan, but I like science fiction that could possibly be true. This is not a great movie, but it's an entertaining one. I'd give it a solid B, but if you feel like lying on the sofa watching a decent movie where your mind won't wander, this one will do it. Also Robert DeNiro is in it as a Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas in Wall Street character) type since, of course, the Bradley Cooper character works out all sorts of algorithms to make money in the stock market.

Even the ending of this movie is pretty good. It made me smirk and go Hmmmmm...

1 comment:

Barbara said...

Uh-oh... when my 17 year old nephew raved about this film to me last year, I shook my head and attributed it to adolescence!