Limitless Limitless is an American science-fiction
thriller film of 2011. The plot of the film follows a struggling writer, Edward Morra,
who acquires a razor-sharp mind after ingesting a pill called NZT-48. The pill gives him enhanced
mental insight leading him to finish his book. Later, he decides to become a stock market
investor to make use of his brilliant mental abilities. However, his life takes a sharp turn
when terrible side effects and a diminishing supply of drugs question his existence.
The film starts with a troubled author from New York named Edward
Morra aka Eddie who is seen attempting to commit suicide by falling off a building.
After the opening credits, Eddie recounts his struggling life journey as an author.
Dismayed by his bleak future, he faces unemployment, writer’s block, and has nothing
else to do except curl up in his living area drinking and smoking. Soon, he faces rejection
from his girlfriend Lindy who is frustrated with his lack of ambition and concentration.
Eddie tries to stop Lindy from breaking up with him but Lindy does not resist and reminds him
how his first marriage also didn’t work out. It turns out that Eddie married the love of his life,
Melissa right after college who left him high and dry. After hearing rejection from Lindy,
Eddie runs into his ex-brother-in-law, Vernon after many years. Vernon takes him to a bar
where the two of them share drinks and chat about life. Eddie reveals to him that he has
got a book contract but hasn’t even written a single word due to his writer’s block.
Vernon offers to help by giving him a sample of a new nootropic drug that claims to activate
specific receptors of the brain that lets the human access all of the brains. Vernon has been
working with a pharmaceutical company that is working on the trial of this drug and Vernon
wants to try it on Eddie as it will help him overcome his creative problems. Eddie refuses
to take the drug but when Vernon tells him that it costs 800 dollars a pill, Eddie agrees to take it.
On his way home, he thoughtlessly ingests the pill and enters his building. On the stairs, he
bumps into his landlord’s wife who starts ragging at him for not paying the rent. All of a sudden,
Eddie’s brain cells excite up and he realizes that he has acquired perfect recall. He is able
to analyze small details altogether and can link them with his prior memory within microseconds.
While he is being yelled out, he zones out for a moment and then with his newly acquired power,
calms the lady down by helping her with her law school thesis.
The girl becomes super impressed with Eddie’s smartness and ends up in bed with him.
Later, he returns to his apartment and is confused to see the mess in it. His new powers force him
to become anal-retentive and tidy up his surroundings. After cleaning the house,
Eddie realizes that he hadn’t had a cigarette in six hours and has been abstemious for a while.
His head becomes clear and focused, inspiring him to start writing for his book. However,
the next morning, he goes back to his old self as no surge of brilliance hit him but one thing
remained which was his writing. Proud, he goes to his contractor and hands her the copy of his book,
leaving her awestruck. Later, he returns home and finds an overwhelming message
from the book contractor who is more than happy with his writing.
Desperate to get more pills for himself, Eddie goes to Vernon’s apartment. Upon reaching there,
he is shocked to see Vernon’s face beaten up. Eddie asks him about the drug and Vernon
reveals that it has not been out in the market as it is FDA-unapproved but is called NZT-48.
Vernon realizes that Eddie will go to any limit to acquire the drug so he makes him his errand boy,
asking him to cook food, wash his toilet, and pick up his clothes from the laundry.
But soon afterward, Eddie finds Vernon in his apartment shot dead.
He flips out and calls 911 to report a murder. After the call, Eddie realizes that Vernon must
be killed by someone searching for the drug as the entire apartment is turned upside down.
So, he decides to search for Vernon’s supply as the police take forever to arrive.
After searching everywhere, he finally finds the stash and stack of cash inside the oven and
quickly takes it before the police arrive. Later, Eddie is interrogated by the police officer but
he does not reveal to him the story of Vernon’s drug. Melissa calls the station to talk to Eddie.
Eddie feels nostalgic hearing his ex-wife’s voice after ten years and proposes to meet
but Melissa turns down his request. The officer thinks that Eddie is being cagey so he asks him
to leave his number for further investigation. Eddie goes home and starts taking increasing
doses of the drug. Vernon’s cash combined with an unprecedented surge of motivation enables him
to finish the book in four days. He starts using his razor-sharp mind to learn piano, count cards,
and learn new languages. Girls start hitting on him due to his vast knowledge as he starts to know
everything about everything. His brain just starts pouring out everything he had ever read, heard,
or seen. He starts expanding his circle and makes new friends who invite him to a beach party. While
enjoying himself with his friends, Eddie gets an epiphany to start investing in the stock market.
However, he faces capital deficiency so he meets up with Gennady, a loan shark to get a loan. Soon,
he is hired by his friend, Kevin at a trading firm. By the end of the first week at his job,
his brokerage account contains over two million dollars, driving the entire firm crazy. He then
gets back with Lindy who is surprised to see the new and enhanced Eddie rising to the top of the
financial world. In the restaurant, stoked on the untested chemical, Eddie converses with the
waitress in the Italian language, leaving Lindy awestrucked. Along with Eddie’s bank account, his
relationship with Lindy also starts flourishing. Soon, Eddie notices that he is being followed
by a guy who wears a trench coat but Eddie ignores him. Amidst the chaos,
Eddie starts experiencing the side effects of the drug and finds himself zoned out.
Soon, his phenomenal skills land him a meeting with finance tycoon Carl Van Loon
who tests him by seeking advice on a merger with Hank Atwood's company that he is contemplating.
Witnessing Carl’s never-ending knowledge, Carl intends to use him to make a fortune
and gives him a day to work out a deal for him. After the meeting, Eddie feels excited,
and instead of walking to his home, he ends up at a bar. He drinks excessively and gets laid with
a random girl in a hotel room. Later, he picks a fight with a bunch of random people, implementing
the actions he once saw in a fighting movie. It turns out that Eddie was experiencing a time
skip and when he finally comes back to his senses, he realizes that he has an 18-hour loss of memory.
The next day, he wakes up and remembers that he has to study Van’s file to make a deal.
However, this time he decides to give it a shot without ingesting the drug.
Before the meeting, Eddie loses his wits and calls Kevin to postpone the meeting.
But Kevin forces him to take the meeting as it is his only chance to impress Van. Dazed, Eddie
goes to attend the meeting where he sees a news telecast that a woman has been murdered in her
hotel room. He quickly recognizes her as the woman he slept with during his time skip. Petrified,
he walks out of the meeting and throws up. He returns home only to find out through
his ex-wife’s voicemail that Vernon’s drug is life-threatening. Eddie insists
on meeting her and Melissa finally agrees to meet him. Later, Eddie decides to contact Vernon’s
other clients who have been taking the drug and discovers that either they are dead or sick.
Just then, Eddie again sees the man in a trench coat following him and so he runs away to evade
him. He then goes to a diner to meet Melissa and is shocked to see her miserable condition.
It turns out that Melissa was also on NZT-48 and ever since she stopped taking it, she has been
sick and is unable to concentrate on anything for more than ten minutes. Eddie is devastated
to hear Melissa’s story after he realizes that he has also started having headaches.
On his way back home, Gennady runs into him and smacks him against the wall for not returning the
loan. Gennady then finds the drug on Eddie and consumes it without giving it a second thought.
Eddie then takes him to his bank and returns the money. However, he fails to make it back home so
he races to Lindy’s office, asking her to get him the pills from his home quickly. Lindy is
surprised to see Eddie’s miserable condition and understands that all the energy and focus in Eddie
came from the drug. When Eddie tells her that he has hidden half a stash of pills in her apartment,
Lindy is infuriated and goes to her apartment to fetch it for him.
However, on her way back, the trench coat guy starts following her. Lindy tries to evade him and
asks two strangers for help. But the mysterious man stabs both the strangers with his knife.
Meanwhile, Lindy hides in a park and calls Eddie for help. Eddie suggests she take one
of the pills as it will help her think of a way out of it. As soon as Lindy consumes the pill,
her brain starts working excessively fast and she feels invincible. She runs to the ice-skating
ground to evade the man and smartly uses a little girl as a weapon to knock him down. Finally,
she reaches her office and gives Eddie a pill after which the two of them check into a hotel.
The next morning, Lindy tells Eddie she cannot be with him while he is on the drug. Eddie tries
to assure her that the drug will help them reach the heights they always wanted but Lindy realizes
that after consuming the drug, the person does not feel himself. Without listening to Eddie,
she walks out of the hotel. Soon Eddie finds Gennady chasing him for more pills so he sells
him a few of them to buy some time. He hires two bodyguards to protect him from Gennady who
is threatening to obtain more drugs and then goes to Van to make amends. Soon,
he goes back to being his old genius self, stocked with the pills. Van hires him to broker the
biggest merger in corporate history which will earn Eddie 40 million dollars. Subsequently,
Eddie learns that if he maintains an even dosage, sleeps on time, remembers to eat, drink and
prevents alcohol, the blackouts do not recur. Eddie then gets an imperceptible compartment
tailored to his suits to keep the drugs on him. He also hires a laboratory in an
attempt to reverse-engineer the drug in six months in exchange for two million dollars.
Later, he hires the most lethal lawyer in New York named Morris Brandt as his attorney to keep the
police from investigating the death of the woman he was with during his time skip. Soon Van offers
Eddie a permanent job as he is too impressed with his mental abilities. One day, Eddie returns to
his hotel only to find it ransacked. So, he buys a high-security bunker with a hell of a view.
On the day of the merger, while everything is set to take place and Eddie is about to get his 40
million dollars, Atwood’s wife informs Van and Eddie that Atwood fell into a coma. Eddie then
recognizes Atwood's driver as the man in the trench coat and realizes Atwood is on NZT-48.
Eddie is called to the police station to participate in the investigation of the
murdered woman. While he is busy identifying, Morris holds Eddie’s coat for safekeeping.
Soon Eddie realizes that Morris has stolen his supply of pills from his coat. Van then
starts questioning Eddie about Atwood’s coma and just then Eddie receives a parcel that contains
the severed hands of his two bodyguards. Eddie is shocked to see the parcel
and abruptly leaves the room. He rushes home and locks himself in. Just then,
Gennady and his henchman arrive and try to break into his apartment. Having no other choice,
Eddie goes to his terrace to commit suicide and the scene goes back to the start of the film.
Before jumping off the terrace, Eddie’s brain realizes that there is a possibility that he might
have one pill of NZT-48 in his belongings. So, he starts going through his cartons while Gennady
welds his way through the steel door. Finally, he finds one pill but unfortunately, it falls
off his hand before he could have it and Gennady enters the apartment, demanding more of the drug.
While Gennady’s henchmen search the apartment, Gennady shows Eddie how he injects himself
with the drug explaining that by injecting it directly into the bloodstream, the effects last
longer. Gennady then threatens to chop Eddie but before that could happen, Eddie grabs a knife and
stabs Gennady to death. Just then, Eddie realizes that if he does not get a pill, he will die too.
So, he drinks Gennady’s blood to get the last of the NZT-48 in his bloodstream. This gives
Eddie’s brain the needed power once again and he smartly gets rid of Gennady’s henchmen.
After the killings, Eddie flees the scene and is certain that the police would later note that his
apartment’s previous owner was an arms dealer after looking at the gunshots. Soon, Atwood
dies after which Eddie meets with the man in the trench coat and the two of them go to Morris’s
apartment to recover Eddie’s stash of pills. One year later, Eddie is successful, has a published
book in his name, and is running for the United States Senate. Van visits him to inform him that
he is aware of NZT-48 and that he has taken over the company that produced the drug. Moreover, he
reveals that he has shut down Eddie’s laboratory and offers Eddie a long-lasting supply of the drug
in exchange for Eddie assisting him after he becomes the President of the United States.
Eddie turns down Van’s offer and tells him that he does not need his help as he already has got
himself off of the drug and retained his mental abilities without any side effects.
He then goes to have lunch with Lindy as the two of them have got back together.
The film ends with Eddie speaking to the waiter in the Chinese language, making Lindy suspicious.
This movie has a rating of 7.4 on IMDb. The budget of this movie was around $27 million and at the
box office, it earned $161.8 million. I hope you all liked this video. If yes, then make sure to
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