Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2011

A loser would-be writer (Bradley Cooper, moving onto the A-list) who has just been dumped by his girlfriend (Abbie Cornish) tries out an almost-legal designer drug called NZT that immediately boosts his intelligence in this pseudo-science-fiction, paranoid thriller. He finishes his stalled novel within hours, gets the girl back and moves on to the money markets, where he becomes a kind of Wall Street guru. This attracts the attention of a legendary financier (Robert De Niro) but also that of a pretty nasty gangster with a Russian accent. And then the side effects kick in. It’s an intriguing premise, and one that’s been explored before (Charly, 1968; Awakenings, 1990). Unfortunately, the screenwriters are not nearly as smart as the main character is supposed to be, which presents obvious credibility problems. But it’s rarely dull, the actors are good, the visual effects are inventive, and if you ignore the gaping plot holes, it’s a briskly paced, pretty fun head trip. It would, however, have been a far more intelligent film if they had left off the facile epilogue. Cast includes Anna Friel, Andrew Howard and Johnny Whitworth.