Adjustment Bureau, The : Movie Review


Here's the thing about "The Adjustment Bureau," which is a science-fiction romance featuring Matt Damon and English actress Emily Blunt as a couple on the run from mysterious men with hats. It's a somewhat awkward blend of ingredients, but not in the usual Hollywood fashion, where it often appears that nobody involved really gave a crap, or even bothered to watch the whole thing all the way through. Instead, "The Adjustment Bureau" is distinctly the work of one guy, and not a guy with Spielbergian or Scorsesean clout, either: Writer-director-producer George Nolfi is known in the industry as the writer of "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "Ocean's Twelve," but has never made a movie on his own before.

So the things that are odd about the film, like its blend of Philip K. Dick-trapped-in-"The Matrix" paranoia and cut-rate Augustinian theology, feel clean and organic, if that makes any sense. (It's based, very loosely, on Dick's 1954 short story "The Adjustment Team.") Nolfi's dialogue is lean and often funny, while Damon and Blunt play appealing and clearly delineated characters drawn together by the kind of old-fashioned romantic passion you don't often see in contemporary movies. You can feel the influence of classic American movies like "North by Northwest" and "The Graduate" here, and while I won't argue that Nolfi matches those examples, his ambition is admirable. I also appreciated that "The Adjustment Bureau" doesn't try to out-slick Christopher Nolan or the Wachowski brothers with high-style cinematography or mind-blowing CGI, even as it presents a universe where reality is not what you think, man.

See www.salon.com for full review

Author : Andrew O'Hehir