LIMITLESS

LIMITLESS (Rated PG-13 for disturbing images involving violence, some sexuality & profanity):  Since the silent era, Hollywood doted on plots dealing with writers and writer blocks.  This version begins with one such hopeful, a self-defeating author, Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), who discovers a little pill worth $800 on the market but given to him by a friend.  It not only clears his block but permits him to write a commendable novel in four days.  It also allows him to tap his full mental potential and perfect recall - for a day.  With a bag of the pills in hand (We aren't told how he got them - just one of the many lapses here.), there follows his rise to exceptional fame in the financial world.  He's on the crown of spectacular success, until he finds that there's the chance of a serious price to pay for the use of the drugs.  He's willing to chance it.

The storyline runs predictably until a twist inserts new information, a change of events, and on to possibly even greater promises for a future in high politics.

The film has been alluded to as another modern version of the Faustian theme - well, maybe, but that's asking too much of Leslie Dixon's script, which has, with Neil Burger's slick direction, a surface gloss cluittered with mundane lines like, "I had no choice; I told her everything." 

As with "Inception," the use of remarkable camera techniques never seen before, accompanied by a hard & fast jazzy score, really fascinates; it creates a visual excitement that almost makes up for the glibness.  (I wish I could have found the names of those responsible - not readily available.)  In fact, the camera becomes a vital character here, along with the best use of wide screen photography I've seen in years.  (That wide screen artistry is most astonishingly revealing in scenes taking place in cluttered rooms or across NY's sky scraper landscapes.)  Another innovation is also abetted by hand-held camera use - no car chases here; it's all done on foot, down city streets, through alleys, in Central Park.

The cast is exceptionally good, with Cooper nicely carrying of his changes from an indulgent loser to master of his world.  Abbie Cornish as his sometimes girlfriend and Robert De Niro as a Wall Street baron are sadly wasted, but perform well in their brief appearances.

While it lasts, the movie holds interest, and it might have been sustained had it not been lacking with connective explanatory information and with a more original  ending.  (Grade: B)