Limitless

 Thursday has rolled around again. My god it doesn't feel like seven days ago that I saw Rango but there I was in a nice air conditioned theater again waiting for Limiless to start. This movie took me by surprise as I really thought The Adjustment Bureau was going to be released today. Limitless has had no promotion at my local theatre and yet it was still released. Very strange indeed.

 I have just read on wikipedia that Limiless is also being released in the US and Great Britain at virtually the same time as in NZ. Just goes to show we may be on the bottom of the map but it dosen't makes us a back water!! 

 The movie is based on a book, which like so many , I haven't heard of let alone read. I don't read alot of modern fiction as I consider most of it garbage and unable to hold a candle near to the classics of the 19th century which is where most of my fiction reading comes from. It isn't the plots of modern fiction that fails to inspire me it is the writing which is just too bland to engage me.

 Anyway this should be about a movie and not books! I had a vague idea of the premise and as I had ben robbed of the chance to drool over Emily Blunt I got the absolutely yummy Abbie Cornish instead!! Now I am a Cornish fan. She was very good in Bright Light, the film based on Yeats. I didn't particularly get into that film, it was beautifully made but in all honestly it bored me to tears. In limitless Cornish is at her ravishing best. I have never seen her look so beautifull, and I mean stunningly so! In one scene she is wearing a very nice white blouse that makes her look....ahhhh....hmmmm...ahhh....just indescribable. This is a woman who, like Naomi Watts, just seems to get more attractive the older she gets.

 So gush over, this movie really belongs to Bradley Cooper. He is the lead and plays a bum who gets the chance of sucess beyond his wildest dreams when he is given a simple pill to take. He takes it and all hell breaks loose! His life changes alright as he excels at everything he does. But there is a down side with life threatening side effects not to mention a myriad of others chasing him for his 'stash' of the drug. It is a really good premise, the promotion of the movie goes 'What if a pill could make you rich and powerful?' And this is what happens to Cooper's character. A real rags to riches story.

 Cooper is good here and well cast. He is far from the idiot who loses Doug in the excellent Vegas movie The Hangover. I liked how he went from a down and out bum to a guy that exuded self confidence . It wasn't just a physical transformation as a character one. Robert deNiro is...well Robert deNiro! He is good as the high flying self made and extremely wealthy man, but he has been there before and is nothing new or startling. This is, as I wrote ealier, Cooper's film. Cornish has a limited role and doesn't really get a chance with character expansion.

 A surprising aspect about this movie was some of the cinematography. We see Cooper take the pill and the whole screen lightens up as if the sun has come out on a cloudy day. It is a little detail that engages the viewer into feeling the effect of the drug on Cooper. We see and feel the layers of mediocrity peel away from him in an instant. It also works the other way, for when he crashes the lighting dims to simulate his bottoming out.

 There is also some good camera work when Cooper is so full of the drug he goes on a sixteen hour bender. He comes to not remembering a thing, but we see the events in high speed as they all blur into one. He later finds he killed a woman during that time but can't remmeber doing it. Thanks to the drug though and the money it has helped him make he hires the most expensive lawyer in town that gets him off.

 All in all I found Limitless a more than satisfactory thriller. It has solid performances, the premise is intriguing as Cooper's character asks the viewer 'what would you have done?' There are some fights, bloodshed, and the seemingly never ending obligation within American films, guns. But they are all part of the storyline as the people who take the drug want more and go to any lengths to get it. I went into it not expecting too much. I thought it was going to be just another churned out Hollywood load of nonsense. Instead I found an engaging thriller with some quite good camera work, and in its quiet way, a movie that makes you think.

 I recommend you see Limitless. It isn't ever going to a truely great film, but it has got some good features and is a more than satisfactory way to part with your money for several hours entertainmet. You won't walk out with a feeling of disappointment.
Click here for a limited supply of information:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/

And here for the official site:

http://www.iamrogue.com/limitless/fullsite/