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Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish and Robert De Niro star in the alternately trippy and paranoid thriller

BY JOE TYRRELL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

MOVIE REVIEW

Bradley Cooper is the ideal hero for the age of Bush/Obama: even when he's oozing charm, he's also dripping smarm.

Cooper, known from "Alias" and "The Hangover," is the good-looking pal who always needs money he will never repay. He's the guy being ever so considerate to his girlfriend's troubled sister, who needs a shoulder to cry on, or some other part of the anatomy.

As such, Cooper makes an ideal Eddie Morra, the down-at-the-heels writer who is the protagonist and narrator of the alternately trippy and paranoid new thriller, "Limitless."

Eddie has a lot on his mind, if not a lot in his mind. He hasn't gotten past the first sentence, deleted again and again, of the novel he is contracted to write. He's again behind on the rent for his seedy walk-up in Chinatown. His upwardly mobile girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish), has just left him in a scene that briskly fills in everything we need to know about Eddie and his under-achievements.

As an added attraction, Leslie Dixon's script provides the most efficient summary ever of a failed relationship, Eddie's past marriage to Anna Friel's Melissa, commenced, contested and completed in about six seconds.

Fresh off those opening jolts, it seems only a little convenient when Eddie runs into his former brother-in-law on the street. Johnny Whitworth of "CSI: Miami" provides another caffeinated presence as Melissa's seemingly successful brother Vernon, a former drug dealer now apparently working for a drug company.

Vernon isn't interested in talking about his sister, but he is surprisingly sympathetic to her ex. As a special favor, he insists Eddie try an expensive new pill, NZT, which he says is nearing release after successful trial and FDA approval. You know how people only use 20 percent of their brainpower, Vernon asks in an estimate that seems a bit high. Well NZT awakens the rest.

As Eddie says, how much worse can things get? Next thing he knows, he's confronted by his landlord's pretty but strident wife, lovely T.V. Caprio. Instead of blowing off her threats, suddenly he is acknowledging his faults, suggesting better sources of analysis for her law school paper, taking her to bed. Hey, this stuff really works.

Eddie wants more. But when he bangs on Vernon's door, his former brother-in-law doesn't look too good. Soon he's dead. Not to worry, much, because before the police get there, Eddie finds the stash.

That novel? It's finished in four days. (NZT also helps Eddie type really, really fast.) That scraggly pony tail? It's replaced by an investment-grade haircut. That grunge wardrobe? Substitute Italian suits. Lost love Lindy? She comes back. His permanent four days of stubble? Well, Bradley Cooper is a Hollywood actor, he keeps that.

Most importantly of all, when Eddie Morra talks, your broker listens.

All this goes by smoothly and sleekly, with enough sly humor that "Limitless" seems ready to take its place alongside "The Player" as a cynical satire of writers and their place in a culture whose "E pluribus unum" motto has long since been replaced by "Better living through chemistry," not to mention "Caveat emptor."

After all, the last thing Eddie and his new associates want is to be lumped together with the many. Wall Street tycoon Carl Van Loon recruits upstart Eddie to help him take on a competitor who similarly has come out of nowhere. Russian mobster Gennady (Welshman Andrew Howard) demands more than a taste of his stash. And that sinister man trailing first Eddie, then Lindy, is determined to get something for someone.

Most of all, they all want to be too big to fail.

Robert De Niro is particularly good as Van Loon, for whom the facts of life are only natural. Like him, "Limitless" is not constrained by the old-fashioned sentiment of "Flowers to Algernon," or long ago fables of Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa. There's no point being smart if you don't use it to become rich and powerful.

As Conan says — the barbarian, not the comedian — "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women... that is what's best in life." Also, "Limitless" adds, to make money.

But if Eddie can remember anything, at least when he's drug enhanced, his movie quickly forgets. Director Neil Burger is responsible for two other smart but vastly different films, "The Illusionist" and "The Lucky Ones." But here, he seems to forget what made those well-constructed films work. While concentrating on vivid portrayals of the highs and lows of drug use, Burger begins tripping over plot points.

Did Eddie commit a murder? Who is his attorney really representing? Hey, where's Lindy? What does Van Loon have in mind? "Limitless" also applies to the number of loose ends. Like Burger and Dixon, viewers who do not have their own supplies of designer drugs may find it difficult to determine just happened.

But there's always Bradley Cooper, gliding down his own oleaginous trail. He's such a dreamboat, he would never steer you wrong. Right?

Joe Tyrrell may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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