Released Year: 2011
Directed by Neil Burger
Casted by:
Bradley Cooper as Edward "Eddie" Morra
Robert De Niro as Carlos "Carl" Van Loon
Abbie Cornish as Lindy
Anna Friel as Melissa Gant
Story:
Eddie Morra, an author suffering from writer's block, living in New York, is stressed by an approaching deadline. His girlfriend Lindy, frustrated with his lack of progress and financial dependence, breaks up with him. Later, Eddie meets Vernon Gant, the estranged brother of Eddie's ex-wife, Melissa. Vernon, involved with a pharmaceutical company, gives Eddie a nootropic drug, NZT-48. After taking the pill, Eddie finds himself able to learn much faster and recall memories from his distant past, with the only apparent side effect being a change in the color of Eddie's irises while on the drug – his eyes becoming an intense shade of electric blue. He uses this ability to finish ninety pages of his book. The next day, the effects having worn off, he seeks out Vernon in an attempt to get more. While Eddie is running an errand, Vernon is killed. Eddie returns, calls the police and then discovers Vernon's NZT stash just before they arrive. Using the new miracle drug, Eddie quickly completes his book.
Testing his new ability on the stock market, Eddie makes large returns on small investments. Realizing he requires more capital, he borrows one hundred thousand dollars from a Russian loan shark, Gennady (Andrew Howard), and successfully makes a return of two million dollars. He increases his NZT dosage and rekindles his relationship with Lindy.
Eddie's success leads to a meeting with a business tycoon, Carl Van Loon, who wants Eddie to advise him on a merger with Hank Atwood. After work, Eddie starts experiencing blackouts involving large quantities of missing time. He finds himself at a nightclub, a hotel party, in a hotel room with a blonde woman, and in a subway station where he easily subdues several men using techniques seen in old kung fu movies, boxing matches, and documentaries. When this particular marathon blackout finally ends, he finds himself on the Brooklyn Bridge, from which he slowly limps home. Later, Eddie sees a news report detailing the murder of the woman with whom he had slept, but he is unable to remember whether or not he was the killer.
Eddie meets with Melissa and discovers that she too had been on NZT. When she attempted to stop taking it, she had experienced a severe mental rebound effect, as well as a limp like Eddie, while others had died after stopping. On his way home, Eddie is attacked by Gennady, who takes Eddie's last NZT pill. Eddie visits Lindy and asks her to retrieve his backup stash, which he had hidden in her apartment. On her way back, she is followed by a man who'd been stalking Eddie. He corners Lindy in a park, and Eddie tells her to take an NZT pill. The pill enables her to escape and she returns the stash to Eddie.
Eddie experiments with the drug and learns to control his dosage, sleep schedule and food intake to prevent side effects. He continues to earn money on the stock exchange and hires bodyguards to protect him from Gennady, who threatens him in an attempt to obtain more NZT. He buys an armored penthouse and hires a laboratory to reverse engineer NZT. For his part in the merger, Eddie is promised forty million dollars, and he hires an attorney to help keep the police from investigating the deaths of both Vernon and the woman.
On the day of the merger, Atwood's wife informs Van Loon that he has fallen into a coma. Eddie recognizes Atwood's driver as his stalker. While Eddie participates in a lineup, his attorney steals Eddie's whole supply of NZT from his jacket. Soon afterwards, Eddie discovers that his pills are gone and begins to enter withdrawal. He also learns that his bodyguards have been killed. But the severe effects of withdrawal cause him to hurry home when Van Loon questions Eddie about his knowledge relating to Atwood's coma. Gennady breaks into his apartment, demanding more NZT. He reveals that to increase the effect's potency and duration he has been dissolving it in water and injecting it. Eddie stabs Gennady and licks up some of his pooling blood for the NZT it now contains. His increased mental acuity restored, Eddie kills Gennady's henchmen and escapes. He meets with his stalker, surmising that Atwood employed the man to locate more NZT. The two join forces and recover Eddie's stash from his attorney (who did not pass the NZT to his client).
A year later, Eddie has retained his wealth, his book has been released, and he is running for the United States Senate. Van Loon visits him and reveals that he has absorbed the company that produced NZT and shut down Eddie's laboratory. He offers a steady supply of the drug in return for power when Eddie inevitably becomes president. Eddie reveals that he has had multiple laboratories working on NZT for the purposes of reverse engineering it, as well as eliminating all of the negative side-effects. He also implies that he might have found a way to wean himself completely off of the drug without losing any of his enhanced abilities and that he has gained extrasensory perception. He sends Van Loon on his way and meets Lindy at a Chinese restaurant for lunch, where his perfect Chinese language skills with the waiter invite skepticism from Lindy as to whether he is actually off of the drug.
L² Scored: 10/10
L² Comment:
From the novel of Alan Glynn "The Dark Fields"... For me, this movie is fantastic and good to watch, not that I'm promoting drugs here, but wow... i never know drugs can do such effects on human's body. Personally I don't take drugs, except panadol if u wanna say so.. I know a few friends who took drugs and i can see the negative effect that happen on them.
Well, movie is a movie... I dont believe drugs can be helping us in our daily life except those for medication purpose. So, stay away from drugs bloggers:)
