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THE BOURNE IDENTITY Send This Review to a Friend
Fished out of the Mediterranean with bullet holes in his back after his botched attempt to assassinate a target, Matt Damon as Jason Bourne has lost his memory. He has no idea of who he is and why people are trying to kill him. He does have combat and language skills, and he knows a thing or two about escapes. His expertise is what he has retained from being a C.I.A. agent even though he has forgotten the link.
Such is the set up of "The Bourne Identity," directed by Doug Liman and scripted by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron based on Robert Ludlum's thriller. The film is one of those busy time-passing flicks, professionally and smartly constructed but not making very much sense. It mainly serves to get the hero from one predicament to another and team him up with a low-key woman, Marie (Franka Potente), who gets involved unintentionally with his escapades and is thereby in danger too.
Bourne doesn't display any great personality flair--he's certainly no Bond. Therefore, it is tough to care much whether he finds out what's going on or not. The pleasure, if you derive pleasure from this sort of a spy yarn, is in the bits of humor along the way, a wicked car chase through the streets of Paris (where driving normally can be bad enough) and visits to various other foreign locations pleasing to the eye.
The action keeps cutting back to headquarters where the highest priority in the world seems to be eliminating Bourne in order to keep a lid on operations, or something like that. In a film of this nature there isn't much point in looking for logic or sense. You sort of just sit back and watch the mayhem and close calls, admire the hero's dexterity and enjoy the rest of the cast, which includes Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. A Universal Pictures release.
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