Limitless: Limited

The title makes it sound like I didn't like the film, not so, I really enjoyed it.  But it could have been so much more.

It plays like a superbly complex book, which is no problem.  But when converting complex text to film, a decision has to be made; do you make the film long or episodic or do you chop bits and pieces out of the storyline.  This is a big decision and Neil Burger (The Illusionist) made it badly, or maybe not.  Mistakes could have been in the writing, direction or editing, but it's his name on the poster so I'm blaming him.  The problems I have are two fold:  Firstly, a very dramatic (like, the biggest kind of drama) subplot is started but not concluded.  And secondly, super good comic-bookesque scenes demonstrating newly found abilities wet your appetite for a meal that never arrives.

Problems aside though, the film is fast paced and frantic, you can't take your eye off the screen.  There is some very good cinematography showing the streets of Manhattan as you've never seen them before.  Rober De Niro is in it... awesome.  Bradley Cooper proves himself as a proper actor, believable performances on both sides of his super intelligent almost super human/down and out, slobby, hack writer personality.  Very good.

It will undoubtedly keep you talking all the way home.  If this were a a critique rather than a review I could go on for pages and pages, one very true thing about this story, is that the possibilities are Limitless.

6/10.  Bad decisions can't go unpunished.

A slap dash review this time, but I have a film to watch.  Let me know your thoughts, this is a conversation I could have over and over.