BOURNE AGAIN
The Bourne Ultimatum (15)
reviewed by David Mahmoudieh at the
UK premier, Leicester Sq, London
It began 5 years ago: a vision of a fresh but slightly “old-school” genre of spy movie, something without all the unfeasible gadgets and downright implausible Bond-like fandango; a simple story, about a secret agent, not who wants to save the world, but merely learn his real name. It is the story of Jason Bourne. And it’s not only everything Bond wants to be and isn’t -- absorbing, edgy, real -- but, and perhaps most impressively, succeeds without the ostensible desperation to be acknowledged as all or even any of those things.
5 years, two films and a legion of appreciation later, the highly acclaimed Bourne series is ending the same way it began: with severely understated style.
(Damon with his wife at last night's UK premiere)
In this third and culminating entry of the superlative trilogy, Matt Damon returns as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac former assassin for the CIA on the run from the very agency that trained and later betrayed him.
We pick up literally mere seconds after the conclusion of Supremacy, with the CIA still relentlessly hot on Bourne’s heels as he makes his way to London. There he hopes to find investigative reporter Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) who he believes may be able to offer him a public interface through which he can explicate Project Treadstone – the secret CIA training regime that transformed Bourne into a killer.
But Bourne’s information is beaten to the brain of Ross by a well-placed CIA bullet, the Treadstone initiators anxious to tie up every last loose end of their blunders. Bourne has a few knots to untie of his own – namely the entangled mesh of residual anguish and unanswered questions spawned by the barely-avenged death of his girlfriend in the previous film. A path littered with all the kind of spectacular, beyond-belief chase sequence which made the first two films so alive and vivacious.
Don’t be repelled if you haven’t seen the previous Bourne chapters either; one rarity Ultimatum has going for it is just how surprisingly easy a spectacle it is to slip into with little or no prior knowledge of the storyline, the makers succesfully filling any newcomers in quickly and without any lengthy exposition.
One factor immediately made apparent is that this time round Bourne is facing his most ruthless, hostile opposition yet in the form of CIA Deputy Director, Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), who needs Bourne eradicated before he assembles any more pieces of the fragmented puzzle that is his mind and exposes Vosen and his death-dealing colleagues to the media.
Bourne’s best hope of finding his long-coveted elucidation, before the CIA find him, is Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), a fellow CIA Director who secretly empathizes with Bourne’s somewhat awkward predicament. She’s not the only one displaying dissent in the ranks. Things become a little more evenly-balanced for Bourne when CIA Agent and former aide Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) switches sides entirely, pledging her knowledge-heavy allegiance to Bourne, as she fills in some of the gaps in his un-recallable past.
Clearly the film’s plot has been premeditated to question-mark the various intelligence agencies’ modern exploitation of the Patriot Act, a post-9/11 Act of Congress which dramatically expanded the authority of U.S. intelligence agencies overnight. But despite the film’s politically-cognizant pretences, Bourne fundamentally remains a kinetic, super-charged thriller – and thankfully one in which the action serves the story, not the other way round.
There’s undoubtedly something about the whole Bourne trilogy which just breathes with realism. A cinematic lung of its own kind, different to any other – and one which seems to gather greater wind in its sails the longer the series' vessel progresses. For once I find myself actually championing a Tetralogy!
Surely that has something to do with returning director, Paul Greengrass, who is no stranger to the subject matter beyond his preceding Supremacy. Himself a former investigative reporter, Greengrass wrote the controversial Spycatcher, a book which imparted a thorough insight into the workings of MI5, providing details of alleged assassination plots devised by the British secret services. Upon its original release the book caused such a storm that in 1985 Margaret Thatcher even vetoed its publication via the Official Secrets Act.
Fueled by Greengrass’s own innate distrust for secret governmental agencies, the fiction on show here clearly benefits hugely from the truth and procedural accuracy he injects into the story, rendering Greengrass the perfect re-appointment.
(Director Paul Greengrass (middle) with his cast
before the film's unveiling yesterday evening)
Fans will also be pleased to know that the British director hasn’t shaken (no pun unintended) his unhealthy fixation with a certain shaky shoulder-cam style which has served him so well on both Ultimatum’s older brother, the Bourne Supremacy, and Greengrass’ astounding interim film, United 93. Those with motion sickness – you have been warned.
Director of Photography, Oliver Wood, deserves an honourable mention too, bringing a rugged, brooding hue to the look of Ultimatum and always keeping the visuals full of energy and urgency.
And how can we forget, Mr. Bourne himself – the surprisingly revolutionary Damon – who not just in this film but throughout the entire Bourne affair has bought a genuine buoyant plausibility to a very complex character that is a man who, ultimately, is searching for himself.
Finally, I think a huge sum of recognition is due to three off-screen ever-presents in producers Doug Liman, Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley. They have succeeded where countless others have failed in creating a trilogy with not one weak installment.
Watch and learn Hollywood. Watch and learn.
© David Mahmoudieh 2007
The Bourne Ultimatum (15)
reviewed by David Mahmoudieh at the
UK premier, Leicester Sq, London
It began 5 years ago: a vision of a fresh but slightly “old-school” genre of spy movie, something without all the unfeasible gadgets and downright implausible Bond-like fandango; a simple story, about a secret agent, not who wants to save the world, but merely learn his real name. It is the story of Jason Bourne. And it’s not only everything Bond wants to be and isn’t -- absorbing, edgy, real -- but, and perhaps most impressively, succeeds without the ostensible desperation to be acknowledged as all or even any of those things.
5 years, two films and a legion of appreciation later, the highly acclaimed Bourne series is ending the same way it began: with severely understated style.
(Damon with his wife at last night's UK premiere)
In this third and culminating entry of the superlative trilogy, Matt Damon returns as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac former assassin for the CIA on the run from the very agency that trained and later betrayed him.
We pick up literally mere seconds after the conclusion of Supremacy, with the CIA still relentlessly hot on Bourne’s heels as he makes his way to London. There he hopes to find investigative reporter Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) who he believes may be able to offer him a public interface through which he can explicate Project Treadstone – the secret CIA training regime that transformed Bourne into a killer.
But Bourne’s information is beaten to the brain of Ross by a well-placed CIA bullet, the Treadstone initiators anxious to tie up every last loose end of their blunders. Bourne has a few knots to untie of his own – namely the entangled mesh of residual anguish and unanswered questions spawned by the barely-avenged death of his girlfriend in the previous film. A path littered with all the kind of spectacular, beyond-belief chase sequence which made the first two films so alive and vivacious.
Don’t be repelled if you haven’t seen the previous Bourne chapters either; one rarity Ultimatum has going for it is just how surprisingly easy a spectacle it is to slip into with little or no prior knowledge of the storyline, the makers succesfully filling any newcomers in quickly and without any lengthy exposition.
One factor immediately made apparent is that this time round Bourne is facing his most ruthless, hostile opposition yet in the form of CIA Deputy Director, Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), who needs Bourne eradicated before he assembles any more pieces of the fragmented puzzle that is his mind and exposes Vosen and his death-dealing colleagues to the media.
Bourne’s best hope of finding his long-coveted elucidation, before the CIA find him, is Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), a fellow CIA Director who secretly empathizes with Bourne’s somewhat awkward predicament. She’s not the only one displaying dissent in the ranks. Things become a little more evenly-balanced for Bourne when CIA Agent and former aide Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) switches sides entirely, pledging her knowledge-heavy allegiance to Bourne, as she fills in some of the gaps in his un-recallable past.
Clearly the film’s plot has been premeditated to question-mark the various intelligence agencies’ modern exploitation of the Patriot Act, a post-9/11 Act of Congress which dramatically expanded the authority of U.S. intelligence agencies overnight. But despite the film’s politically-cognizant pretences, Bourne fundamentally remains a kinetic, super-charged thriller – and thankfully one in which the action serves the story, not the other way round.
There’s undoubtedly something about the whole Bourne trilogy which just breathes with realism. A cinematic lung of its own kind, different to any other – and one which seems to gather greater wind in its sails the longer the series' vessel progresses. For once I find myself actually championing a Tetralogy!
Surely that has something to do with returning director, Paul Greengrass, who is no stranger to the subject matter beyond his preceding Supremacy. Himself a former investigative reporter, Greengrass wrote the controversial Spycatcher, a book which imparted a thorough insight into the workings of MI5, providing details of alleged assassination plots devised by the British secret services. Upon its original release the book caused such a storm that in 1985 Margaret Thatcher even vetoed its publication via the Official Secrets Act.
Fueled by Greengrass’s own innate distrust for secret governmental agencies, the fiction on show here clearly benefits hugely from the truth and procedural accuracy he injects into the story, rendering Greengrass the perfect re-appointment.
(Director Paul Greengrass (middle) with his cast
before the film's unveiling yesterday evening)
Fans will also be pleased to know that the British director hasn’t shaken (no pun unintended) his unhealthy fixation with a certain shaky shoulder-cam style which has served him so well on both Ultimatum’s older brother, the Bourne Supremacy, and Greengrass’ astounding interim film, United 93. Those with motion sickness – you have been warned.
Director of Photography, Oliver Wood, deserves an honourable mention too, bringing a rugged, brooding hue to the look of Ultimatum and always keeping the visuals full of energy and urgency.
And how can we forget, Mr. Bourne himself – the surprisingly revolutionary Damon – who not just in this film but throughout the entire Bourne affair has bought a genuine buoyant plausibility to a very complex character that is a man who, ultimately, is searching for himself.
Finally, I think a huge sum of recognition is due to three off-screen ever-presents in producers Doug Liman, Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley. They have succeeded where countless others have failed in creating a trilogy with not one weak installment.
Watch and learn Hollywood. Watch and learn.
© David Mahmoudieh 2007
posted by David Mahmoudieh at 4:36 AM
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