Limitless

What if you could access one hundred percent of your brain, not just twenty? What could one person accomplish with their minds at full potential? Could they become billionaires overnight, or the ultimate target for the not so nice guys? Or both in Eddie Morra's case.

In "Limitless," Bradley Cooper plays an unsuccessful, poor, and, after the first five minutes, single writer Eddie Morra. After missing the deadline for his new book that he has not even begun to write yet, things are looking bad for Eddie...until he meets up with his step brother, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth). Eddie knows that Vernon is a drug dealer and at first doesn't really trust him until he shows Eddie a new drug that has supposedly been FDA approved called NZT-48. According to Vernon, the drug will allow for the taker to utilize all of there brain. So Eddie takes one not expecting much until he feels the effects. NZT-48 makes him smarter, improves his focus, and lets him remember anything from his past like TV show clips or words heard on a radio. With the drug he finishes his book in less than a week and after that invests in the stock market which quickly begins to make him richer and richer. Everything is looking good until he finds his step brother dead in his apartment and he begins to feel the side effects of the pill. Soon his activities go by in flashes and Eddie cannot remember what has just happened and he feels ill if he is not always on the move. Now Eddie must struggle with his dilemma: keep taking the pill and go through the dangerous side effects, or stop and get his old, cruddy life back, and the whole time he can't help but think that there is someone out to get him.

There were a lot of good things about "Limitless." First off is the elaborate story and all the things I was not expecting to be in it. Walking into "Limitless," I thought it was just going to be an average drama...I was wrong. The movie isn't just a drama, its filled with a lot of mystery and action as well. The plot kept me on the edge of my seat and thoroughly entertained me the whole time. Also, I was not expecting for Bradley Cooper's character to go Jason Bourne on bad guys and who doesn't love seeing that? Thankfully NZT-48 enables Eddie to remember Bruce Lee films, TV shows about self-defense, etc. which makes him the ultimate fighter even though he doesn't even know what he's doing. Another plus is that the ending is one of those "you decide what happens" endings...I'm always a fan of those (Inception).

But the plot did have one flaw...pointless characters. There are several characters that just have no importance in the film and when they appear on the screen I find myself asking, "Why are you here? What are you contributing? Why are you wasting screen time?" The prime example of this is Robert DeNiro's character, Carl Van Loon. DeNiro was highly utilized in the advertisements for this film but in the actual movie...he only has about 15 minutes tops of screen time. His character has virtually no point and anything slightly important about him could have been transferred to the other and more important "bad guy" of the film.

"Limitless," its story, and Cooper as its lead all surprised me. I had a much bigger interest and liking for the film that I expected to have and even though some parts of the plot were pointless, I can get over that. "Limitless" is a suspenseful, action drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole trip. I give it 3 stars out of 4.

"Limitless" has a running time of 1 hour and 45 minutes and is rated PG-13 for thematic material involving a drug, violence including disturbing images, sexuality and language.