(Some Spoilers) A somewhat confused movie with a load of flashbacks that make you at times unaware if your in the past or present. It's Claire Forlani's performance as the undercover policewoman Monica that makes the film "Gone Dark" or "The Limit" more then worth watching.
Inflitrating "the Crew", a big city drug gang, Monica wins over the confidence of her boss Gale Carmody, Pete Poslethwilte,to the point where he lets her use his van for hours at a time to get "The Crew" lunch and dinner. Carmdy doesn't realize that Moni, as she's called by him , uses it to get in contact with the FBI that she's working with to get the goods on him. Moni also got addicted to heroin due to the stress of working undercover.
One of "the Crew" members Eight-Ball, Billy Koury, is suspected by Gale to have ripped off 40 kilo's of "The Crew's" heroin and Moni is given the task to collect it from him. Almost getting killed "The Crew's" second in command Danny,Henry Czrney, come to Moni's rescues that make her totally trust him. Later when she finds out, from Danny, that he's also working for the Feds to set up Gale and his gang she moves in with him. What Moni later finds out is that Danny set up Eight-Ball to take the blame for the missing heroin.
The movie starts out with May, Lauren Bacall, a resident at Moni and Danny's apartment house being told by the police that her next door neighbor, Danny,was found shot and killed and if she knew anything about the shooting. It turned out that May mistakenly got a number of letters and packages that were sent to Danny. Those letters and packages turned out to have valuable information about "The Crew" and Gale's involvement with the local Russian Mafia as well as Moni's undercover activities in Gale's organization. Moni trying to get her hands on the letters and packages at May's apartment gets very friendly with her in order to gain access to her place and get the important documents but as it turned out it would be a lot harder then she first thought.
"Gone Dark" tells it's story with a number of flashbacks as Moni slowly starts to disintegrates due to her heroin addiction and desperately needing a quick fix. Moni who had all the cards, and gun, at the start of the film begins to lose her grip on May and goes into a gut wrenching withdrawal from her desperate need for a heroin load that by the time the movie is about over she's completely out of it. There's also "the Crew" waiting for her downstairs, they already found that she's FBI, and the only thing left for her is to violently die from severe heroin withdrawal syndrome or the end of the barrel of her 9mm automatic.
A lot of twists and turns in "Gone Dark" that keep the movies storyline going but they do come together and show the audience how the whole story set itself up in flashback in May's apartment with Moni waiting for the end to finally come. A number of double-crosses on both sides, the crew's members Danny and the police and FBI, put Moni in a position where she was left out to dry all by herself.
May who at first seemed unaware of what what's happening with the mail for Danny that she mistakenly got turned out to be very well informed of both Danny activities as well as her health coach Brian(Joris Jarsky),who was always coming over to look after her, from the mail that she got from Danny. The movie slowly shows Moni fall apart from her addiction to and need for heroin as well as her betrayal by the FBI and Danny.
In one of the most shocking demonstrations of a suffering drug addict ever, far more convincing then the famous one with Frank Sinatra in "The Man with the Golden Arm", Forlina's acting is so unnerving and believable that you almost want to run to the nearest phone to call 911 to get her help. Forlina more then holds her own against,in fact she easily eclipses, the legendary Lauren Bacall in every scene she's in with her in the movie.
