Testing his analytical skills on the stock market, Eddie quickly 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 begins to rekindle his relationship with Lindy.
Eddie's prodigious success leads to a meeting with a finance tycoon, Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro), who as a test asks Eddie to advise him on a merger with Hank Atwood's (Richard Bekins) company. Walking through Manhattan after the meeting, Eddie starts experiencing hallucinations and the sense of time skipping forward, noticing that several hours have suddenly passed of which he has no memory. As this effect recurs over the course of the day and night he finds himself at a nightclub, a hotel party, in a hotel room with a blonde woman (Caroline Winberg), and in a subway station where he easily subdues several muggers who attack him (thanks to the effects of NZT). When this series of blackouts finally ends, he finds himself standing on the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn, 18 hours having passed that he cannot account for. He slowly limps home. Later, Eddie sees a news report detailing the murder of the blonde woman whom he had presumably slept with, 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. She informs him that when she attempted to stop taking it, she had experienced a severe mental rebound effect, as well as a limp like Eddie, and that there are several people who have died after stopping dosing. On his way home, Eddie is accosted 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 (Tomas Arana) 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 in an attempt to reverse engineerNZT. For his part in Carl Van Loon's merger, Eddie is promised forty million dollars, and he hires an attorney (Ned Eisenberg) 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 him 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 (entitled The Dark Fields, the name of the book on which the movie is based) 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 eventually and inevitably becomes President of the United States. Eddie implies that he has had multiple laboratories working on NZT for the purposes of reverse engineering it, as well as being able to eliminate all of the negative side-effects. He states that he has found a way to wean himself completely off of the drug without losing any of his enhanced abilities. He turns down Van Loon and sends him on his way. He meets Lindy at a Chinese restaurant for lunch, where his Chinese language skills with the waiter invite skepticism from Lindy as to whether he is actually off of the drug.
CastBradley Cooper as Edward "Eddie" Morra
Robert De Niro as Carlos "Carl" Van Loon
Abbie Cornish as Lindy
Anna Friel as Melissa Gant
Johnny Whitworth as Vernon Gant
Richard Bekins as Henry "Hank" Atwood
Robert John Burke as Donald "Don" Pierce
Tomas Arana as the Man in a tan coat
T.V. Carpio as Valerie
Patricia Kalember as Mrs. Atwood
Andrew Howard as Gennady
Ned Eisenberg as Morris Brandt
Robert De Niro as Carlos "Carl" Van Loon
Abbie Cornish as Lindy
Anna Friel as Melissa Gant
Johnny Whitworth as Vernon Gant
Richard Bekins as Henry "Hank" Atwood
Robert John Burke as Donald "Don" Pierce
Tomas Arana as the Man in a tan coat
T.V. Carpio as Valerie
Patricia Kalember as Mrs. Atwood
Andrew Howard as Gennady
Ned Eisenberg as Morris Brandt
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