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Will the Real Jason Please Stand Up
By bukkhead | August 6, 2007
FILM REVIEW: ‘THE BOURNE IDENTITY’
Written by Tony Gilroy. Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum
Directed by Doug Liman
Rated PG-13
119 mins.
When the Damon and the Affleck popped up with their (yawn) Academy Award-winning screenplay for Goodwill Hunting, I was not impressed. You can call it jealousy, if you want, or sour grapes. I mean, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and one of ‘em’s got an uncle or something in the biz who opened the doors. My uncle is an electrician. Then again, I’ve never written a screenplay.
But over the years, the Damon has been eroding my disdain. The Affleck sometimes too, Dogma notwithstanding (I passed—I’m still not a fan of Kevin Smith). To use a trite metaphor, The Bourne Identity is sort of the crowning jewel in this reluctant respect. How can I like the movie and dislike the actor?
Not that this movie is all about the actor. Here is a film that works on more than one layer, with something for most film fans. On the surface it’s a qualified action flick, with the usual fight scenes and car chases. A little deeper, and it’s a spy thriller, with the intrigue, half-revealed secrets, and twists that you’d expect. Deeper than that, there’s Jason Bourne’s struggles to pursue, discover, and then attempt to shed his past. And in this humble reviewer’s opinion, it’s simply a fine piece of film work, conveying a consistency and artistry not usually found in this genre.
The movie is based, but only loosely, on Robert Ludlum’s novel of the same name from the 70s: A man is discovered floating, barely alive, in the middle of the Mediterranean, by fishermen on a small boat. Eventually he comes to, with no memory of what happened before, but the ability to speak several languages. The ship’s doctor finds a small device implanted in the man’s hip, which itself is a mystery, revealing a numbered bank account in Zurich. Eventually he discovers that he is Jason Bourne. At least, that’s what some of his many passports say.
Everything’s been modernized for this film, which manages to contain that cold-war era edge without actually being set in that time frame, and also without becoming a cartoonish gadget film like Mission Impossible or some of the late-middle James Bond films. And Damon brings to the role that subtle combination of bewildered and confidant. He knows how to do things, he just doesn’t know why. It’s only in acute pressure situations, where instinct takes over, that his pre-amnesiac self can come out.
A kind of metaphor itself, if I may. Bourne has to put himself in tense, dangerous, potentially fatal situations just to find out who he is, and I have to make myself watch Matt Damon’s movies to realize he’s not just another benefactor of Hollywood nepotism. Well, he is, but at least he isn’t wasting it. In the end, The Bourne Identity has become one of my all-time favorite movies. This is not to say I trust Matt Damon—but at least now I won’t reject a film just because he’s in it.
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