Major Plot Hole ! When the Russian injects himself with the drug he must

I think early on they said something about the drug making a person smarter, but if you were smart to begin with you would go farther than a person of average or less than average intelligence. Eddie was smart enough to be a writer or at least to want to be a writer, so something of an intellectual.

Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam

I think he believes he'd be faster than Eddie, and Eddie would lose that fight. So he doesn't worry about it. But he is after getting more of the drug therefore his mind was probably focused too intently on getting Eddie to tell him where the other drugs are.
The plot hole I see in that whole scenario is the Russian would be intelligent enough to have went and made his own lab's to reproduce the drug himself. :::::SPOILER:::::

Just as Eddie did from the first time he went to the guy to figure out how to make more.
Had I had the drug, that's the very first thing I would have done and learned how to come off it, and then went about life as he did when the movie ended. Although I would have dumped Lindy because if she didn't love him for who he was before the drug came along, it just meant she was wanting a different man. When you love someone, you just do, if they married then they'd surly have to leave out the "better or worse, richer or poorer" part. Because Eddie was at his all time low when she dumped him.
If she really loved him she'd of either helped him find a way to get him to focus. Like what if he was ADD or something, she would walk out on him, then she never really loved him, she just wanted a life with material things.

Surely it takes more than 10 seconds for the drugs to begin to work?















Ashmi any question

It was really stupid that Eddie didn't find a way to deal with the Russian to begin with. He could have sniped him with a suppressed rifle from a long ways away and the police would have thought the Russian's enemies did it.

Expectation. Eddie sees these possibilities not by accident, but because noticing them helps him with his current situation. To the Russian, the current situation is that Eddie can't do anything. He is under the firm belief that Eddie - who is not on NZT currently - can't do anything against him, let alone stab him to death.

You notice this when Eddie is in a fist-fight. The NZT helps him out by miraculously combining autobiographical memory with muscle memory in an amazing effort to dramatically improve his combat prowess. However, when he is attacked from behind he is still hit, because he simply did not see it coming.

The whole "only people who are already smart can get the most out of NZT" deal is only in there so people don't wonder why the hell the drug dealer is selling those pills, rather than using them himself. It wouldn't work for the Russian in any case, since he seems to be inherently more capable of violence than Eddie.

Just because you have the intelligence to see the possibilities of a situation doesn't mean you have the humility to recognize they might take place. The Russian guy had Eddie beaten. Eddie was clearly not on NZT and was outnumbered 3-1. Eddie wasn't a threat as far as the Russian was concerned, so he didn't consider the danger he might possess.

It is the same arrogance and lack of recognition that led Eddie to go to a Russian Mobster to borrow $100k in the first place. He's smart enough not to do that, but he wants what he wants right now, so he doesn't consider the consequences.

NZT is not a miracle drug, it "only" allows the user to be at 100% of his own potential. The Russian didn't have such as strong potential as Eddie did so...

Or you can look at it the Pirates of Silicon Valley way: "Success is a menace. It fools smart people into thinking they can't lose." The guy killed the bodyguards, made it into the house of a financial guy, and had him beaten down, he wouldn't suspect any counter happening...