(Note: When traveling through France, watch out for amnesia-ridden assassins and their rainbow-haired traveling companions…)
CAST: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Adewale Akkinouye-Agbaje, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles.
DIRECTOR: Doug Liman
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and rather unorthodox European vacations straight ahead…
The opening scene of 2002’s genre-changing action hit THE BOURNE IDENTITY never fails to get under my skin. Primarily because it reminds me so much of a recurring dream that I have. Well, maybe even a repressed memory from this life - or the last one. Anyhow, anyone who’s seen the movie know what I’m talking about: Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) floating face down in the sea.
Everytime I watch this scene I always get the heebie-geebies that comes from the vague feeling that… you… done… this… before. The one thing I am sure of is that whatever memory I have of floating facedown in some body of water somewhere in time must have been caused by something alcohol-related. Naturally.
This isn’t the case with Jason Bourne, though, because he’s soon fished out of the cold water by an Italian fishing boat. Seems our boy Jace has been shot a few times, and is wearing a wetsuit. You do the math. Could it be a scuba diving session that went horribly awry when his dive buddy tried to shoot a Trevally Jack with a gun? Should Jason have told the knucklehead to use a speargun instead?
Well, we don’t know for sure what happened. The good-hearted Italian fishermen nurse Jason back to health. When they ask Jason who he is and what happened to him, he can’t remember a thing. Being generous Italians, the fishermen pretty much give Jason the option of staying in their quaint little village for the rest of his life and being one of them. Which, frankly, seems very appealing to me. If this movie had been called THE SARCASTO IDENTITY, I would’ve stayed in that fishing village, fishing the sea for the rest of my life and the movie would’ve been over after ten minutes.
Fortunately, I am not the hero of THE BOURNE IDENTITY, and so Jason chooses the opposite. He chooses to leave and find out who he is and what happened to him. Those generous Italians give Jason the clothes off their backs and some money and send him out into the world to find out who tried to kill him. I remember watching this for the first time in the cinemas in Guam in 2002, and basically slapping my forehead while yelling: “You fucking idiot!! You’re in Italy, you dunce, surrounded by hot Italian fishermen!! Why… the.. FUCK… are you leaving?”
I think it was at that point where my friend politely leaned over to me and replied, “Because he doesn’t swing that way, dumbass…”
Oh… Well, anyhow, Jason makes it to Zurich where, using information he somehow didn’t forget along with everything else, he accesses a safety deposit box where he finds the following: (1) a shitload of money; (2) a gun; and (3) a large number of passports that would make even James Bond green with envy. This is followed by an incident in a park where a cop tries to throw a sleeping Jason onto the street, thinking he’s a bum. Which, technically, Jason is. Albeit a smokin’hot one with lots of money, a gun, and a large number of passports that would make James Bond green with envy.
Okay, folks… remember the first time you realized you had a special ability? Remember how it just came flowing out of you, surprising both yourself and the people around you? Well, that’s what happens with our buddy Jason. Only his special ability is martial arts. And the cops around him don’t really get much of a chance to be surprised because they end up unconscious in no time flat. Leaving our boy Jason to stand there looking at his fists with wonder and going: “Keeeeeeeeeeeewwwwlllll!!!!”
Needless to say, it’s beginning to appear that JB’s history is not that of some doofus vacationing on Capri who had one too many glasses of grappa before diving. Otherwise, he probably would’ve begged those cops for mercy. Nope, we’re talking about something more sinister here…
Sure enough, we eventually find out that Jason Bourne is one a fleet of assassins who work for the CIA. The unit they belong to is total Black Ops shit, and is called Treadstone. Presumably, there’s a reason why they named themselves after a car tire, but I just don’t see it right now. If you figure out, let me know.
Anyhow, after a particularly disastrous visit to the U.S. Consulate in Zurich, Jason runs into German national Marie Kreutz, a Kraut expat in Switzerland who has hair all the colors of the rainbow. Jason, sensing that she could use some extra spending money, offers Marie $10,000 to drive him to Paris - with another $10,000 when they get there. And he ain’t even throwing in a blowjob in the parking lot as condition. What a bang-up guy.
Marie, being a normal human being with sufficient brain capacity, takes him up on his offer. Soon, our amnesiac spy and his kaleidoscope-haired Girl Friday are peelin’ rubber for the City of Lights. What is waiting for them there? What is Jason’s Agenda? How will they evade the goons that Jason’s former boss (Chris Cooper) have sicced on them? Will Jason’s memory return? Will he realize that loves, ahem, Italian sausage after all - and regret leaving the fishing village and all the hot Italian fishermen that live there?
God, I hope so. Because that would be a fucking hilarious plot twist.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Once every decade or so, a film comes out and redefines the genre it belongs to. For the action genre, one such film was DIE HARD (review # 151), which came out in 1988 - and not only gave the genre a much-needed shot in the arm, but also created the Action Movie Confined To One Location sub-genre. Soon, DIE HARD-knockoffs such as CLIFFHANGER, PASSENGER 57, SPEED, and UNDER SIEGE were hitting screens left and right.
The next time an action movie redefined the genre was when THE BOURNE IDENTITY was released in 2002. Based on the Robert Ludlum bestseller, THE BOURNE IDENTITY has already been filmed in the 80’s as a mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith. However, while that earlier TV adaptation hewed fairly close to the novel, this big-screen incarnation is more of a re-imagining of the novel.
By not chaining themselves to the novel, director Doug Liman and screenwriter Tony Gilroy are afforded a creative freedom that infuses the story with a kinetic kick. The action scenes are breathless, compact, and visceral. They don’t feel rehearsed or choreographed, but seem to naturally erupt from the events onscreen. This dynamic way of handling action scenes has pretty much been repeated in subsequent BOURNE installments, as well as the Bond films CASINO ROYALE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE. The Liam Neeson action/thrillers TAKEN and UNKNOWN have also adopted this adrenalized method.
But the main reason THE BOURNE IDENTITY works very well is because Liman, Gilroy, and their talented cast anchor the story in very human terms. Jason Bourne may indeed come across as a superman with his skills, but Matt Damon refuses to play him in such simple terms. Damon infuses Bourne with a whole gallery of non-verbal gestures and tics that semaphore the hidden layers of fear and uncertainty beneath that cool façade. The scene where he lets Marie prattle on and on about her life while they drive to Paris, and we think he hasn’t heard a single word she’s said, only to discover the opposite is true, is a good example. He has not only heard everything - but understood what she was trying to say. And how rare is that in human conversation?
Another is the scene towards the end where he and Marie seek shelter with an old friend of hers. Bourne stands in the yard, silently watching the kids and their dog play on the swings. Something about the way Damon plays this scene underscores Bourne’s own innocence. And it all happens without a single word.
Matching Damon and becoming an indispensable part of the film, is Franka Potente as Marie. I remember reading an interview with the producers before the movie came out. They were discussing the role of Marie, and how she had been written as an American in the original draft of the screenplay. However, the decision was made to make her German to lend a more authentic, European feel to the film. This was a very smart move. Even smarter was casting an “everywoman” like Franka Potente in the role.
Even after going European with the character, the producers could have still made a mistake by casting some glamorous supermodel-type in the role. The thing about Marie is that she is the pretty girl you see behind the counter of the café on the corner. Or the one selling her paintings on the sidewalk, smiling the whole time. Or the one who asks you to change her 10-Euro bill on the train, and then ends up befriending you with her open manner. And Franka Potente has all those qualities: tall, but not intimidating; sweet, yet also street-wise; pretty, but not scarily so. Basically, Potente is the ace up THE BOURNE IDENTITY’s sleeve.
What’s even more important is how Damon and Potente click as a couple. They are never less than believable as fugitives on the run. With other screen couples in such a situation, you can almost sense the hair and make-up team waiting just off-camera to rush in and touch up their appearance after the director yells cut. With this couple, we are pulled 100% into their plight - and want to see them get through it. Indeed, their final reunion on the Greek island of Mykonos is one of the best action/thriller endings ever. It ends this often chilly and bleak film on the perfect note of warmth and hope.
The rest of the cast are almost as impressive. Chris Cooper turns Conklin into a surprisingly atypical version of a CIA villain, while Brian Cox turns Ward Abbott into a more typical one. Clive Owen does well with his small role as one of Bourne’s fellow assassins. And as Nicky Parsons, the woman who would grow in importance throughout the rest of the BOURNE films, Julia Stiles is the right blend of steely yet naïve. Watching her finally get a full showcase in THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM was very rewarding.
In the end, just as DIE HARD redefined the Action Genre in 1988, THE BOURNE IDENTITY once again changed the game in 2002. And its effects are still being felt to this day. If that’s not the definition of a trend-setter, I don’t know what is….
In closing, revel in the super-cool strains of Moby as they visualize THE BOURNE IDENTITY’s theme song, “Extreme Ways…”
