To me this seems much more like a Phillip K Dick story than The Adjustment Bureau. A down on his luck writer, played by Brad Cooper, is offered a wonder drug that changes the way he sees the world, and opens a new realm of possibilities for what he is capable of. We already knew Brad Cooper could do the job as a clean cut good looking over achiever, but here he gets the chance to show another side at the start of the movie as a hobo, down and out writer, and he does a great job. Perhaps it's that to me Brad Cooper still isn't too familiar but he really becomes the character in this one.
What I loved about this movie was the great sense of paranoia, fear, danger and confusion that this movie portrayed, all emotions associated with drug use and all quite real for our protagonist here. People are following him, he's having black outs, he's gonna run out of drugs, he owes money to a loan shark, the drug has made his life better but brought it's own set of problems.
I did enjoy the fact that the movie doesn't get preachy or carry some sort of anti-drug message, but at the same time it is also held back from greatness by the fact it doesn't really explore any of these issues such as is it right to take drugs to improve performance or open our minds, and it doesn't go into greater detail about how many people around the world are and have been using this drug, and how many world changing events have been shaped by this drug, since it becomes clear there are many people using it. In this sense they could have made it far more sci-fi and turned it into a bit of an epic. Instead this is purely a story about one man, and even then we don't really get to understand him all that much.
It's a well done movie, and a good story told well, but it's limited scope keeps it from greatness. Still, it's worth watching.
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