Yes its the guy from the Hangover, but by the end of this movie that brand will be no more as Bradley Cooper provides a character that is both believable and easy to sympathise with.
Edward "Eddie" Morra is essentially a lazy deadbeat, and when your a writer that's never a productive characteristic. His girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) leaves him, his editor wants to see the progress he's making on his book - one word - and he looks like shit. Its no surprise the film starts with him standing on the top of a multi-storey building a breath from death narrating how he got to this specific moment in time.
Skip back a while to the beginning of our protagonists story when we see Eddie on the way back home from another nothing day, when little does he know his whole life is about to change for ever when he unexpectedly bumps into his ex-wife's brother.
He knows that his ex-brother in law is into drugs and doesn't want to go down that route, even when Vernon Gant (Johnny Whitworth) explains that now he works for a pharmaceutical company that has produced a nootropic drug called NZT-48 that's not yet on the market and allows you to access 100% of your brain as opposed to the rugular 20%. Though intrigued, Eddie is still a little reluctant but when he gets given a free sample, like any normal human being, he graciously accepts. And after a short time deliberating the pros and cons he realises that he does in fact have nothing to lose by experimenting with this drug.
It would be an understatement to say that his eyes were opened for the amount of time the drug lasts. As he gains knowledge, understanding and a sense of accomplishment as his brain works at an accelerated rate. This of course doesn't last, and after having just a taste of what he knows he can do with the help of NZT, he like many others before him was hooked.
He manages to get his desperate hands on more, but with now a regular supply to keep him 80% ahead of everyone else in the world, its a talent that a lot of people want on their side namely powerful businessman Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro). Suddenly in a lot of danger from other people who want to know his secret, that want to use his new mind for themselves and even from the NZT itself. Its no wonder that he ends up on the top of a building contemplating the limitlessness of death.