As most of us already know — and The Adjustment Bureau is eager to confirm — angels are watching over Matt Damon. Blessed among actors, he can charm us as the resilient Jason Bourne, then amuse us as the addled hero of The Informant! without breaking stride.
Cradled in Damon’s solidly reliable hands, even a movie as extravagantly silly as this one gains heft and credibility, an impressive accomplishment when you consider that the entire plot revolves around magic notebooks and spellbinding hats.
Plucked from the seemingly bottomless well of Philip K. Dick short stories (albeit in heavily revised form), The Adjustment Bureau is filled with nattily dressed men running hither and yon like Mad Men rejects, searching for an exit from a paranoid screenplay. Their purpose is to tidy up the life lines of important people, making “adjustments” when they stray off course. Apparently human beings, left to their own devices, will engineer global destruction, and the Bureau’s unseen boss — referred to only as the Chairman — has a much better plan.
Right now he’s especially concerned about David Norris (Matt Damon), a loose-cannon politician who needs to be headed to the White House. Instead, he’s losing a Senate race and dallying in the men’s room of a posh Manhattan hotel with Elise (Emily Blunt). What Elise would be doing there is anyone’s guess; even the film’s writer and newbie director, George Nolfi, just pulls a reason out of thin air.
But Blunt could sell MapQuest to prison inmates, and five minutes of zingy repartee and hot looks later, she’s gone, he’s smitten, and the Bureau is in a tizzy to prevent them from ever meeting again.