Big Screen Blurb: Limitless

Nice thought. You take a little clear pill and all of a sudden the five percent of your brain that you actually use expands exponentially. The potential of the human mind is unleashed: sometimes for good and sometimes for evil, but always more powerful and potent.

That’s the premise of Bradley Cooper’s latest flick, Limitless. Cooper plays Eddie, a struggling writer who stumbles across a steroid for the brain from his former brother-in-law. There are problems, however, as utopia for the mind hasn’t exactly translated into perfection for life. Let’s just say the drug is not exactly FDA approved. Therefore, there are some problems with it, including being heavily sought after by the select few who know about it. Unfortunately, enough people do know about it to make it a hot commodity and worth killing to possess. But wait, there are more problems. Not having a governmental stamp of approval has left the drug—well, not exactly safe. In fact, it’s deadly. This leaves Eddie scrambling for more while he’s using his expanded smarts to make a killing in stock trading. Yadayadayada various paths cross as Eddie races against numerous challenges to avoid death’s multi-pronged attack.

It’s good. I’ll go with 3.5 Stars on this one. Limitless is certainly able to hold your attention, even if you decided upon Mr. Pibb as a mental stimulant in lieu of that little clear pill. Cooper is good; quite good, in fact. He shows a little range with an interesting character who you don’t know whether you want to slap upside the head or cheer alongside. Of course, Robert DeNiro, who plays the rich and powerful Carl Van Loon, was his typical brilliant self. Actually, DeNiro could have used more screen time in this one.

You’ve got a lot happening here for certain, but it all makes for an interesting 105 minutes. You’ve got the drug itself…Eddie’s expanded mind-power and all that he’s doing with it…a battle with thugs eager to get the drug and all the twists and turns that accompany a pretty winding, but interesting, ride. It’s a lot, but not too much.

Limitless is probably not for everyone, but there’s enough here to check out. That is, unless you’re one who insists on mind numbing romance or mindless explosions, in that case this food for thought flick might be worth skipping. If the concept is interesting to you…see it BIG…if there’s enough in this review to make you go “hmm”, rent it.

That’s it for me…got to watch some March Madness ELITE EIGHT style!

True…OUT!