Jimmy Robson - Limitless

As most of the movies we have viewed as a class have not been released in the last decade, it was interesting to view a contemporary movie through the lens of religion. Honestly, I am not terribly impressed with many of the movies that have come out in the 2000s, as they seem to appeal more to the senses through bright explosions, sensuality, and pulsing soundtracks rather than to the mind. Limitless, however, offered a moral dilemma that encouraged deliberation. However, after seeing the movie, I did not like the message it presented.

Throughout the movie, Bradley Cooper's character, Eddie, continually finds himself dependent on NZT-48, addicted to the newfound ability to access his mind in it's entirety. Once he was exposed to it and saw how it allowed him to organize his life, he continued to do whatever he could to obtain it. Just like any other drug, when he runs out, he goes into withdrawal. His desperation to continue to take the drug even puts those he loves into peril, as he knows someone is trying to kill him and prevent him from taking any more of the drug, but he sends his girlfriend Lindy to get the pills for him, forcing her to take the same risk. By the end of the movie, I expected Eddie to give up the pill and in a redemptive declaration that the cons outweigh the pros. However, that point never comes, and we find that Eddie has in fact found a way to infuse the medicine in his blood stream so that he will have it for the rest of his life.

Eddie's journey throughout the movie is the ultimate display existentialism to the extreme. Eddie takes the medicine to improve his life, helping him to make a name for himself. Eventually, Eddie's addiction gets to the point that he finds his identity in the pills. All of his actions and every decision he makes are made possible by the effects of the pills. Eddie without the medicine and Eddie with the medicine are not the same person, thus he has created a false identity. Furthermore, from a biblical perspective, by taking the pills, Eddie is rejecting the idea that he was fearfully and wonderfully made. He finds no value in himself as he was created, but only in the person he becomes through the effects of the medicine. Therefore, Eddie is not a self-made man. Instead, he is a synthetically made man. Taking this into account, the message I received from the film was that, in our current state, God failed to make man in his image.