Bradley Cooper as Eddie Morra, behind the wheel of a Maserati GranTurismo while filming Limitless (2011).
Vitals
Bradley Cooper as Eddie Morra, performance-enhanced investor and former struggling author
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Spring 2010
Film: Limitless
Release Date: March 18, 2011
Director: Neil Burger
Costume Designer: Jenny Gering
Background
This final installment for this Car Week aims to get everyone geared up for any upcoming beach vacations and possible drug-induced professional success.
A brief sequence in Limitless portrays NZT’s effects as glamorous, and few things would be more glamorous than speeding around a tropical coast behind in a new Maserati. Eddie Morra, in addition to the unexplained circumstances that lead to his taking the wheel of this Italian sports car, finds himself hobnobbing with fellow bon vivants at Casa China Blanca, a stunning villa in Puerto Vallarta.
Eddie and his new pals seemingly tire of their wine-fueled brunches and approach the edge of a cliff, where our brightly-clad and seemingly bright-futured protagonists quickly calculates the odds of survival vs. badassery and takes a leap into Banderas Bay… a heavy contrast to the much darker circumstances that find him contemplating a similar leap from the balcony of his penthouse apartment later on.
What’d He Wear?
This may be the simplest BAMF Style breakdown yet as Eddie’s beachgoing outfit in Mexico consists of no more than a white shirt and black swimming trunks.
Eddie’s white linen shirt has a slim collar, long sleeves that Eddie rolled up to his elbows, and seven white plastic buttons up the front placket, although he only buttons a few in the middle for more of a casual, devil-may-care look. TheTake identified this shirt as a J. Crew linen shirt.
Eddie makes a calculated risk.
The shirt has two large patch pockets on the chest. Each pocket closes with a single button on a slim, slightly pointed flap. There are two slim loops on each shoulder as though for epaulettes although the loops seem to add no functional purpose other than adding a somewhat military-inspired look.
That feeling when taking NZT tells you that jumping off that cliff isn’t such a bad idea…
Eddie is the only one of his crew that appears to be sartorially prepared for swimming, possibly since he’s the only one who would consider jumping off a cliff into the Pacific. His black polyester swim shorts have a white drawstring and very short vents on the sides. TheTake has identified these as Parke & Ronen Swimming Shorts.
Eddie and his thrillseeking pals.
Since style has changed in the last few years since Limitless was released, all swimming shorts and trunks in the current Parke & Ronen lineup are much shorter than they would’ve been when the scene was filmed in June 2010.
![LimitlessEM-crop]()
How to Get the Look
Eddie’s simple beach attire keeps him feeling and looking cool whether around a brunch table, behind the wheel, or in the waves.
- White linen J. Crew long-sleeve shirt with slim collar, front placket, two button-flapped chest patch pockets, and 2 slim shoulder loops
- Black polyester Parke & Ronen swimming trunks with white drawstring
The Car
The filmmakers wanted to showcase Eddie’s new glamorous lifestyle by placing him in a luxury car that would be racing around the roads of his exotic vacation spot. While filming in June 2010 – still titled The Dark Fields – the production received two new dark gray Maserati GranTurismo coupes for free as part of Maserati North America’s “guerilla product placement” approach.
In a March 2011 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Scott Kroopf recalls “They jumped right in and did it, and they creatively fit the bill.” The same article includes details of the placement:
To pull it off, Maserati sourced a dark-gray GranTurismo Coupe from its official importer in Mexico and shipped a matching four-seater from the U.S. to Puerto Vallarta in time for filming in June. No money changed hands in the deal; in the end, Maserati spent less than $10,000 on the project – with most of that going toward shipping costs and payment for a company technician who was on location for the one-day shoot.
Maserati’s low-budget/high-exposure strategy paid off as the car was featured prominently in two Super Bowl ads and a memorable scene in the film. Though less than a minute long, the scene stuck in audience’s minds as Eddie and his date bump along to “La Boquilla (DixOne Remix)” by Bomba Estéreo, a Colombian band whose name translates loosely to “a badass party”… appropriately enough as Eddie’s life at that moment is seemingly an endless parade of badass partying.
A shot from the Limitless trailer of Eddie’s Maserati barreling through the streets of Puerto Vallarta.
Maserati rolled out its new GranTurismo model at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show as the successor to the Maserati Coupé model with the Coupé’s F136 V8 engine expanded from 4.2 to 4.3 liters and now tuned to output 405 hp. (The earlier Coupé had been designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, the famous Italian designer who also developed the Lotus Esprit as featured in my last post.)
The four-seat GranTurismo shares the four-door Maserati Quattroporte V’s M139 platform with a slightly shortened wheelbase. After the base model’s introduction in 2007, Maserati developed several other variants of the GranTurismo: the S, the S Automatic, the MC, the MC Sport Line, and the Sport. The Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale is one of the best performing models with a top speed of just under 190 mph, compared to the base GranTurismo’s still impressive 177 mph.
2011 Maserati GranTurismo
Body Style: 2-door sport coupe
Layout: front mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive (FMR)
Engine: 4.2 L (4244 cc) Ferrari/Maserati F136 UE V8
Power: 399 hp (298 kW; 405 PS) @ 7100 rpm
Torque: 339 lb·ft (460 N·m) @ 4750 rpm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Wheelbase: 115.8 inches (2942 mm)
Length: 192.2 inches (4881 mm)
Width: 72.7 inches (1847 mm)
Height: 53.3 inches (1353 mm)
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Buy the movie.
