Film Analysis

Film Analysis (15 Minutes) - Limitless

Limitless is an American sci-fi thriller directed by Neil Burger in 2011. The story centres around struggling author Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), who ends up taking an experimental drug that ends up giving him the power of utilising his brain, and helps him get his life back on track.

The film first starts off with showing the inside of a hotel building, which includes scenes of the door, with a loud diegetic knocking sound coming from it, the kitchen area of an apartment, and the first floor of the building, which also shows lifeless bodies, with their faces hidden to make their identity a secret. The camera then zooms out of the doors of the hotel, and moves up in a singles shot to the top of the building where the protagonist is on the edge of a building. He acts as if he is about to jump off, but is interrupted by an attack of a person inside the building. It then closes up on Eddie's face and shows his nervous look as if he is asking himself "what do I do now?". Throughout all of this, there is some action-driven non-diegetic music playing in the background, which helps to convey the type of atmosphere and genre this movie is going to have, and will also create hype in order to get the audience invested in what is going to happen later in the movie. Also, there is a narration from the main character talking about what is going through his head at this moment, and what type of actions caused him to get to this point.

The camera then zooms in to get to the bottom of the building, and when it hits a car, the camera then transitions to zoom in on the street the building is on, in order to show the type of location the movie is set in, while also showcasing the American tropes to associate what country made this movie. The same non-diegetic music continues to play throughout the opening credits in order the get their target audience invested with the type of movie it is. After a minute of the street setting, it then starts showing an X-ray scan of the brain and the insides of it, in order to show that sci-fi genre it wants to have. In then morphs to an aerial shot of the town, the movie takes place in, and then zooms into one of the houses from a low angle, which might suggest this is where the protagonist lives, and then cuts to white to show the title sequence has finished.

After the sequence has finished, the narration continues with the main character talking about how this scenario started. These scene includes a montage of the protagonist having a writer's block, which includes him trying to type on his computer, reading a magazine, and bouncing a ball onto the wall, with it's diegetic knocking noise echoing the room. This shows the type of occupation the character has, and the type of problems he id dealing in with his life. This is explained further by the type of room he is in which is small, and not really fancy looking, showing he is short on money.

In a later scene when his procrastination leads to him watching a fighting movie, he mentions that he still has his girlfriend who still supports him, but that transitions to the next scene where it goes to an American Diner, and Eddie's girlfriend breaks up with him. This scene mostly consists of Shot-Reverse-Shots in order to progress the conversation and sees what dialogues is being said, along with the other person's reaction of that speech. This helps to create further detail about the character, and the progression of what could happen to the couple.

After the break-up, Eddie then ends up meeting an old friend of his, and then goes to a pub to have a conversation with him. This then ends up with Eddie's old friend giving him an unexpected drug that was said to end up enhance the nerves in the brain, and will lower stress. It then goes to a close-up of the drug in a plastic bag, as if to emphasise that all this stuff can happen in that one single pill. he then continues his walk home, but then has a change of heart and decides to take the drug. It then closes up on his mouth to show that he took it, and then goes to an x-ray shot of his neck to show that the pill has been swallowed, as if it wants to tell us that something will happen now that the main character has took the drug. This will help show that the pill will do something to him, and will make the audinece continue watching it as they want to know what the pill does.

In conclusion, the first 15 minutes of Limitless helps to introduce the protagonist, and the type of situation he is in, how it links with the type of genre it is portraying, and how it keeps itself suspnseful in order to engage the audience and make them continue to watch it.