Limitless by Neil Burger - Essay Example

?Limitless – An Analysis “According to an old joke, a buyer pays for and consumes pellets marketed to him as "smartenin' pills". Later, he comes backcomplaining that he took the pills, but doesn't feel smarter. "You need more pills, then!” retorts the seller. The buyer concedes, and goes on his way. This continues until a day when the buyer shows up, somehow enlightened: "I'm on to your scam! These aren't smartenin' pills - they're rabbit poop!" To this the seller delivers the punch line, "Ah! Now you're finally getting smarter!"” (Tudor, Jim) This anecdote connects the movie Limitless in a very crucial manner because the movie is essentially a sci-fi or psychological thriller that has taken over brain power and intelligence, making the audience around the world understand the ill effects of drugs through strong and strange visuals and graphics. Bradley Cooper is the main character in the movie Limitless, directed by Neil Burger, released on the 18th of March, 2011. The film is based on the novel ‘The Dark Fields’ written by author Alan Glynn, which speaks about a rather surreal trip taken by a man desperate to find new ways to living life, without any obstructions. The movie follows the life and times of Eddie, (played by Cooper), a struggling writer living in the dingy areas of New York City, trying to make a name for himself, but to no avail. However, one fine day, he chances upon some NZT pills, a drug he is told, which will increase human access to his brain by a 100% instead of the normal 20% that most human beings that was available to most human beings. Cooper begins to take the pills, feeling a drastic change in his everyday routine, as the pills sharpen his skills and make him feel more energised than ever before. They provide him with the opportunity to feel manic and think extremely fast, making him finish the first ninety pages of his book within an instant. He shows the book to his publisher, and to his surprise, the publisher loves it and accepts it; this makes Eddie think that the pills were effective and that taking them on a daily basis could indeed change his life. The film then follows the course of Eddie’s dosage as he has an encounter by Russian thugs and tries to restore his past by comprehending and fixing his relationship with his ex wife. Several murders and violent scenes take place as Eddie gets mixed with villains that are out to get him and his pills, and the film also goes through a series of medical complications because soon Eddie witnesses that almost every person who had ever taken those pills has either died or is seriously ill and in danger of passing away very soon. He too begins to undergo blackouts and fits and cannot understand what is wrong as he begins to see that everyone around him is dying. Furthermore, the addiction caused by the pills does not help him in trying to overcome what has become his deepest and darkest fear. Nonetheless, he tries to increase his dosage in order to get more and more clarity of thought on everything that has been happening around him and all these scenes have been captured with great skill by the director, as well as the cameras that have helped to portray them so wonderfully on screen. The film undergoes a whirlwind of emotions on part of Eddie who begins to experience a plethora of negative emotions ranging from afraid to angry and repenting. The morals within the movie are decidedly unconventional in nature because even though Eddie has become addicted to the drugs, he tries to free himself from their clutches, despite having constant revelations of the drugs doing him good instead of harm. The entire concept of the movie as well does not confuse the audience when it comes to intelligence vs. mental capacity. What the movie does ask the audience to understand is that even though the pills might have helped Eddie in tapping his potential as an author, how do they help his passion for living life after the book has already been turned in and made him famous? The film provides for some heavy scenes which may remind the viewers of surreal trips like in ‘Requiem for a Dream’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ Eddie begins to lose himself within the soaring trip which engulfs him completely while providing very modern and cinematic drug trip visualizations. The title of the movie, ‘Limitless’ suggests how Eddie is nothing but a more enhanced version of his previous self; an enhancement which would have come about within his personality had he given himself the credit for being able to do that without external aid. It aims to display how there are absolutely no limits to Eddie’s life (a man who had once reached a limit in his life and was not able to move further) once he has taken those pills, and that nothing can stop him from doing what he wants to do and achieving what he wants to achieve. However, he needed the pills to prove to himself that he could tap all his potential and become the successful man that he finally became. The movie is thus an eye opener for people to understand that it is not important to tap oneself from the external environment to understand what is going on within. The entire story is much fractured in parts because it only aims to provide visuals of the events and happenings within Eddie’s life by keeping the audience on their toes. The opening title sequence of the film itself is compelling itself in nature as it is accompanied with witty voice-overs; these voice-overs have taken over most parts of the film, helping the audience set into a gloomy and dark setting. The film is full of exciting and long flash backs and flash forwards, helping to depict a very profound downfall undergone by a man of stature in the modern day and age. Bradley Cooper has also played his part with a considerable amount of effort, and was himself thrilled about the idea of playing a phenomenal character that loses his mind within his own mind. “I loved him,” he gushes, “I liked the idea that when we meet him, it’s not that he feels sorry for himself at all. He’s just actually resigned to the fact that his life is such that his potential wasn’t fulfilled. And that’s where we meet.” (Passafuime, Rocco) As Eddie goes through this heart thumping tale of ups and downs and ventures deeper into the problems which have been facing him in his life, all his flaws jump out at the audience, becoming more and more obvious with every passing moment. The music in the film has also been chosen quite surreptitiously, providing perfect background scores to every pumping action piece that takes place on screen. The film is a psychological thriller that leaves the audience thinking ‘what if..’, ‘what next’, and the momentum is regained around the course that the wonder drug takes as it warps itself around the lives of people within the film. It also is a film that shows the intensity with which drugs have mainly formed a part of the social conventions of society and how more and more poverty stricken people take them in order to feel better from within, under the impression of being able to do better in life. However, these drugs only take over their lives; leave them addicted and even more penniless than before, in addition to leaving them feeling helpless and estranged. Nonetheless, Mark Jenkins, critic for the NPR, writes, “The movie also suffers from a slightly musty aroma. Smart drugs (aka nootropics) may still be popular on college campuses, but they peaked as a journalistic subject toward the end of the last decade. They lost their kick, in fact, around the same time everyone realized that Wall Street's soaring profits were based on something other than soaring intelligence.” (Jenkins, Mark) The movie is nothing but a psychedelic journey; taking people places in their minds and helping them understand that at the end of the day, it is not a pill that does the trick, but a mind illusion that is caused by taking the pill. The movie also depicts a number of scenes most explicitly, almost with a view to scare the audience with the effects of the pill on Eddie; this may be understood as one of the moral obligations that the film was trying to undertake, with a view to help society understand the ill effects of being addicted to such pills. The film shows how complacency can turn into power overnight, and how the same can end up destroying a person if it is not adhered to carefully. Power is always accompanied with great amounts of responsibility and accountability, something Eddie fails to take. Some scenes are frightening as they show how Eddie loses touch with his near and dear ones and forgets all about his emotions; the entire psychedelic trip makes him forget who he is because he becomes so intent on becoming a new person without any worries; however, it must be understood that no human being can encounter such a lifestyle without going through a certain amount of complications, which may even include losing out on feelings altogether. As a person, in the beginning, Eddie is not afraid to even do that because losing out on simple emotions gives him a high in life, something he would not have experienced had he let emotions stifle his movement. However, later he understands the need for having those simple aspects of life close to him. Bradley Cooper has played an exceptionally tough role in an easy manner, helping the audience to relate with his character easily. He is downtrodden at first, and then begins to look at life through various parallel dimensions, as he begins to take his psychological trips with the drugs. Furthermore, he witnesses a large amount of murders, which harden him over the course of time, and also confound him into believing whether or not he had a role behind them. He thus plays his part with rightful justification and manages to woo the audience and haunt them into negating the drugs from their minds. Coming to other credible roles within the movie, Robert De Niro also manages to portray his role extremely well as he takes on the part of the finance tycoon out to get Cooper. A great amount of mystery and perception clouds the thoughts of the audience as they are thrown into a swirl of the unthinkable, which calls for a suspension of disbelief if one wants to actually enjoy the thrill that the movie has to offer. This is because the entire film is based on the belief that every human being only uses about 20% of their brain potential and thinking skills, and ignores all information about people’s actual intelligent quotients. The film spends almost no time really delving into the massively raised IQ of Bradley Cooper, however it does use his increased brainpower as an excuse to engage in a sort of kinetic, visual trickery which helps to engage the audience for a period of almost two hours, before they can go back to reality and . “Burger’s movie has a real eye for bright colours and strange warping effects which do more to keep you interested in what’s happening than in anything this story has going,” said another critic, courtesy of Cinema Blend. The film is essentially formed of a number of disengaged memories, linked together by Eddie’s sub conscious, as it tries to grab hold of the past, present as well as the future, and thus boil down to normal conventional film making. Most people enjoyed the voice over narration thoroughly because it helped to provide an element of eeriness and mystery, keeping the audience at their toes, telling a tale about a lost cause through the actions and eyes of Eddie. Cooper was extremely fascinating to watch because his expressions made almost every scene so believable that a vast amount of the people watching it refused to believe that the brain could be tapped without any external aid. The director, Burger, as well tried his best to connect the dots and make the movie a raw synopsis of the energy that each and every human being possesses but is so afraid to use because of the danger of that very energy turning against him in the future. For Cooper, this film was an eye opener as many people took his acting seriously and applauded him for his nonchalant and manic acting. This movie helped him not only display his skills, but tell the world that he does not only possess a pretty face but a mean attitude as well. Areas where he was on the drugs within the movie were the most exciting scenes because it was entertaining, if nothing else, to watch him undertake surprise fights and discussions, as well as astonish himself and his own emotions because of his arguments. The other parts of the movie however made it seem like a very regular drug movie, with dingy and dark alleys and gang members out to get one another. At the same time, most people craved for a better ending, which would have Cooper either realising his mistakes or coming to terms with all that he had done with his life. In this manner, most of the scenes seemed extremely cut off from one another as there was no connection or link, especially with the last scene as he is sitting across a table from Lindy, making everyone wonder how he spoke Mandarin. In conclusion, Limitless was well received by a majority of the audience, notwithstanding the few that thought that the movie did not spell out all that it wanted to so badly. Some thought that it was not connected properly and the scenes fell apart because of a lack of concrete substance; however, most people understood the trip that the director wanted to engage the people within for a limited period of time, and help them understand the power of being limitless and having an unlimited source of prowess. The entire concept of the movie talks about how a person can tap into his own sub conscious and reveal his innermost thoughts without having to seek some externalities; however, despite knowing the same, people engage in drugs and other substances in order to understand the inner workings of their minds. Yet, this idea leaves people sceptical and dubious because it cannot be carried out in reality; even though there have been stories of people ‘losing their minds’ because of drug addiction, no proof of clarity of thought has ever been written down in permanence. This indeed can be scary for several people who do not have the ability to live their lives in such a frantic manner, however, Cooper made it seem easy enough for people to sit through the film and come out of the theatre with vivid and haunting memories in their minds, to take back home, and fiddle around with. References Movie Review - 'Limitless' - Possibilities, Hemmed In By Hollywood Norms : NPR. 2012. Movie Review - 'Limitless' - Possibilities, Hemmed In By Hollywood Norms : NPR. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/18/134536177/limitless-possibilities-hemmed-in-by-hollywood. [Accessed 08 January 2012]. Tudor, Jim. LIMITLESS review. 2012. LIMITLESS review. [ONLINE] Available at:http://twitchfilm.com/reviews/2011/03/limitless-review.php. [Accessed 08 January 2012]. Passafime, Rocco. Bradley Cooper Interview for Limitless | The Cinema Source. 2012. Bradley Cooper Interview for Limitless | The Cinema Source. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.thecinemasource.com/blog/interviews/bradley-cooper-interview-for-limitless/. [Accessed 08 January 2012]. Read More