Limitless (2011)

Did it ever happen to you to see a movie exactly when you needed it ? And I'm not referring only to lighten up your day, but a bit more than that. If you know what I mean, you know what I mean :), if you don't .. maybe you'll find out one day ;) ( or maybe not if you're not as weird as me in mood changing :) ) Getting back to the initial question, for me it happens once in a while to see a movie pretty much at the right time when I should see it (although the effect it's usually gone quite fast :) ) .. It was the case for "A Beautiful Mind" in 2002 (was exactly what I needed that spring for some moral boost), also for "500 Days of Summer", somewhere between 2009 and 2010 (well, for this one it would've been better to be earlier :) ..), and maybe also for other titles that I don't remember now .. Ok, I'll cut it short with this part (which probably sounds cryptic enough to generate a ".. wtf .. ?! .." from a potential reader) by just saying that, as it's probably obvious already, "Limitless" just made my day, and in the following I might be a bit subjective due to that ...

What we have here is a thriller, adapted from a book, whose subject develops originally enough for you not to forget the story after two days. All begins with a failed writer, having a contract for a book with an editor, but no book, no inspiration, no money to pay the rent and after a few minutes of the movie no girlfriend. However, the guy gets to have a random encounter on the street with his ex brother-in-law, who seems to be a former light drugs dealer that advanced now to smuggling secret substances developed by private companies. And as every respectable commercial enterprise does, he is giving away free sample to potential customers. Which is exactly where our writer fits in, and the free sample in this case is a pill that enhances the cognitive abilities to maximum. The first effect: the wordless book project gets up to the first part done in a few hours. The second effect: the dosage that made the first effect possible doesn't last for long (and the book is not yet ready) therefore the former potential writer who just went to bestseller author status decides that it would be better to get permanently on his former brother-in-law clients list. Unfortunately, not long after the visit he pays to get this done, his future drug provider becomes his former dead provider being killed by probably other clients looking for the same stuff. Yet, the fate seems to be still on our writer's side, because he manages to find in the dead guy's apartment what the killers didn't - the whole pill stash. And from here onwards .. :) the usual line - see the movie.

The movie is directed by Neil Burger ("The Illusionist") and I can say that's almost perfect on this part, especially considering that it manages to get over quite a number of plot holes and loose ends in the script and not letting you to feel them very much (although this doesn't mean that those aren't there). The funny part is that the ending is the one which might seem a bit confuse, and that it might be a bit more developed, but it's not exactly like this ... if you pay enough attention you can get a pretty straightforward conclusion. Without spoiling it, I can say that if the ending was any longer it would have turned into a pretty trivial one. To say a few words about movie making, the most important to consider here is the cinematography. The director of photography is Jo Willems - a totally unknown name for me, until I looked on the IMDb page and I've seen there "30 Days of Night" .. that almost made me to refresh the page to be sure I'm not hallucinating. As worst that .. thing was considering the cinematography, even for a horror movie, as better is "Limitless". I really loved the intro sequence technique, which is reused during the movie. There are also other scenes to be mentioned along with the filters, but considering it's the visuals it would be better to see the movie than talking too much about this now. Shortly put it's the best cinematography I've seen this year.

I'm wrapping up this entry going back to the idea that the movie is directed almost flawlessly, most of the problems it has coming from the script. The view of the main character feelings it creates is superb. The interesting part is that what you see it's almost an on screen transposition of the inner mind way of action that's specific to a manic depressive type of individual (or with bipolar disorder in case this terminology is more clear), and this considering that the subject hasn't anything to do with that (at least not explicitly). But through the presented pill effects what you see is pretty similar with the manic periods in which u feel u can turn the world upside down alternating with the depressive ones when sometimes you feel like not being able to move a straw (the only difference in reality in these cases is that the ratio is reversed = less manic, more depressive ... ). So, to summarize, like I said, for me the movie was more than welcome. The only problem is that this "pill effect" on me :) wears off quite quick ...

Rating: 4 out of 5