A paranoia-fueled action thriller about an unsuccessful writer whose life is transformed by a top-secret "smart drug" that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life in this darkly comic and provocative film.
24 Dec Limitless (2011)
Constraints
There are two things here to recommend.
The first is that the screenplay is based on a fresh idea that springs from the kind of gangster genre typified by Snatch. I’ll characterise this as an anti-genre film because it uses that genre as a shortcut to describe the background world of violence the story has. But the story itself rides outside that genre.
That story has quite a few unexpected turns because it depends on no particular genre but skips among a few. So I’ll give this very high marks for having been well conceived.
It also happens to have a well handled set of cinematic conventions, switching effortlessly into POV of the superbrain from time to time. There is something interesting here, something about a noir hero transforming into the con master, having to outwit what seems to be three groups of thugs.
One notable feature: in typical noir fashion, the central character narrates. But he is also a writer, and presumably what we see in the latter part of the film is the book written in the earlier part.
Posted in 2015
Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
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