After watching the movie, I have moderated my views of the movie: First, Bradley Cooper is still a pretty boy, but he is convincing, sympathetic, and did a damn good job. Robert De Niro is still washed up, but he appeared sparingly and nailed his part of ruthless business magnate. Second, that line actually appears in the movie. It is still incredibly false and incredibly stupid, but the character who says it gets shot in the head soon afterwards. I'll make that deal. Third, Limitless is honestly one of the smartest movies I have seen in the past few years. I was so impressed by and engrossed with the first half of the film that I decided to finish it rather than leave to get blindingly drunk with some friends...at least until the movie ended.
"You know how they say we only use 20% of our brains..."
There are a lot of cool things in Limitless, but what I am most interested in is discussing is the way that the movie tells its story. I found that there were a bunch of themes at work and that a lot was actually going on under the surface of the story. I may be reading a lot of my analysis into the movie, but just because something wasn't intended doesn't mean that it's not there. If anything, it just means that I'm smarter than they are. Yay, douchebag!
I think that first and foremost, Limitless calls into question modern day morality, or a lack thereof. The basic premise is that a drug called NZT allows users to access the full potential of their brains. As a result, users can do things like learn incredibly fast (like an entire language in a few days) and recall any memory from their life (like the author of a book they saw on a shelf when they were six). Cooper's character, Eddie Morra, is a down-on-his-luck writer who, after using the drug, finishes his novel in a matter of days. He also uses his new-found brain power to bang his landlord's hot Asian wife and then to absolutely dominate the stock market. I forget the exact numbers, but he turns a few thousand into a few million within days. By the end of the movie, he is making a dominant push to become a Senator, with implied future plans for the Presidency. And all of this success, the millions made and power gained, is solely the results of Morra's using NZT.
It's nothing like this.
And at no point during the entire film is a question raised about the morality of NZT. Morra never stops to wonder if what he is doing is right, and none of the characters come close to even touching on the subject. There are selfish concerns about side effects and supply limits, but never whether the use of such a miracle drug for personal gains can be justified. One could even extrapolate that Morra's success necessitates the failure of others; for him to be gaining, others must be losing. And there is even a moment when Morra finds out that, while in a NZT-induced blackout, he likely killed a woman (or, at the very least, was there when she was killed). He becomes incredibly worried that he will be caught and have his career ruined, but he spends very little time considering the moral implications of a drug that has so clearly hurt others both fiscally and physically.
This lack of moral consideration initially struck me as a glaring hole in the movie and as something that should have been addressed. But upon further consideration I have concluded that morality as a non-issue really acts as a significant social commentary in and of itself. No one questions the morality of using NZT because, well, why would they? In today's society, Americans are encouraged to take advantage of everything they can. Find bargains, get things cheap, make life easy. The American ethos, which once had been that hard work leads to prosperity, has now transformed into an ideology that one should cut corners to get ahead of the pack. I should reiterate that this is simply what I pulled from the movie, and not necessarily what the storytellers intended, but the movie really drives home the idea that there is no problem in taking what you can and selfishly ignoring any sort of moral implications.
Countless investors and businessmen get caught every year for participating in insider trading, fraud, and/or embezzlement (not to mention even more who are getting away with it). Steroid and PED scandals continue to be exposed in sports from high schools to the professional level. So really, in today's world, why would Edward Morra even hesitate at the opportunity laid before him? He would be dumb not to.
Don't tell me you wouldn't take a peek.
Another interesting part of the movie is when Morra notices that a competing businessman is exhibiting signs of NZT use and withdrawal. He makes an offhand remark about how many 'meteoric rises' have seemingly come out of the blue, but could have been the result of NZT use. So, in other words, those individuals who are leading their professional fields may possibly be there because of an unfair advantage. I couldn't help but make the connection between the way that NZT provides an unfair advantage much in the way that being raised in a wealthy or prominent family does. Simply being born into wealth undoubtedly grants an individual a significant step up on the rest of the population, both in terms of receiving an education and acquiring professional employment.
This is not to say that the wealthy are inherently bad, nor that all successful professionals have not earned or deserve their titles. I do believe, however, that wealth undoubtedly offers an advantage that the majority of Americans do not enjoy, much in the way that NZT gives Morra an advantage over everyone else in his field. The movie does not go so far as to explicitly comment on whether such advantages are just or unjust, but it is rather clear that viewers are supposed to sympathize with Morra's character, despite his making millions of dollars through his drug use. I want to re-watch the movie before I make any deeper or more declarative arguments, but I think that NZT is a very clever device for opening a discussion on equal opportunity in America. Is Limitless going to be remembered for being some sort of seminal film? Most definitely not. But it is surprisingly smart, cleverly serious, and is certainly worth watching.
The final point that I intended to review was the conclusion of Limitless, which began to deal with the question of whether or not Morra had stopped using NZT as planned or was continuing to use it because he couldn't give up what he had gained. I think that the film is almost literary in the way it leaves room for interpretations while offering clues in both directions. I also think, however, that it's impossible to discuss the conclusion in depth without at least clips of the movie for reference. So, until I figure that part out, then that's all I have to say about that.
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