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Review taken from my site: “The Bourne Ultimatum” is the last film, at least for now, in the Bourne trilogy, the hectic high speed spy action franchise that instantly antiquated the pre-Daniel Craig Bond series. The Bourne movies are lean and efficient, cutting the Cold War window dressing and excessive bloat of the spy movie genre in favor of tightly woven action sequences. The old exposition heavy plots of the espionage thriller became extended chase sequences and a breakneck narrative style was created, one that jumped from Paris to London to Virginia with nary a moment of pause. In the first film, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) was discovered floating in the Mediterranean with amnesia and an army of killers on his trail. As the film progressed, he recovered enough memories to figure out he was a black ops CIA experiment gone awry and found the time to develop a romance with fellow traveler Franka Potente. The efforts of various parties, including the CIA and Russian intelligence, to take Bourne down ended with her death at the opening of the second Bourne movie, leading Bourne to hunt down both American spooks in Berlin and ex-KGB in Moscow to exact revenge against his old bosses and his girlfriend’s killers. In “Ultimatum,” Bourne has recovered some earlier memories, these of torture (waterboarding) and reprogramming at the hands of another, even more sinister CIA officer, Albert Hirsch (a greasy Albert Finney). This revelation compels him to confront the CIA directly, including the man in charge of taking him down, Noah Vosen (David Strathairn playing the thankless role of incompetent authority figure). The film follows the established globetrotting formula with a slew of violent confrontations in London, Madrid, Tangier, and New York City. The action is still fast paced and kinetic. Paul Greengrass’s methods- constantly moving handheld camera, rapid fire cuts, and splintered takes- confused a lot of critics and audiences in the last film, but I suspect they’ll see the method in the madness this time out, having had time to assimilate the style, which draws on Greengrass’s docudrama “you’re there” style to place you directly into the action. The style is expertly employed in an intense early scene in Waterloo Station, London, where Bourne must escort a Guardian reporter to safety in a crowd while the CIA tracks their movements with security cameras and assassins stalk the terminal- I somehow doubt the CIA is quite that wired even in these excessively connected times, but from a pure film making standpoint, the scene has a paranoid immediacy, taking place in both NYC and London but feeling impossibly claustrophobic. Greengrass employs the same tactics throughout the film, though even his style begins to wear thin by time we get to the third act and we’ve had our fill of car chases and beatdowns. Matt Damon’s performance is what holds all the absurd action together, and he plays his cards close to his chest this time out, with darkened downcast eyes and scarcely a smile or frown. In the first film, Bourne was lost and confused, startled to discover killing reflexes and frightened by forces that seemed perilously arbitrary- there’s a certain gee-whiz quality in Damon’s performance in that film. In the second, Bourne is sad, angry, and revenge minded- he’s aggressive but grounded by tragedy. Here, he’s driven by single-minded determination to find out who he once was with no time for love or regret. Damon is able to do a lot with a little, and somehow drives the whole film with nothing so much as an expression of aloof resolve; he’s one of the few stars working who can completely disappear into a role. Inside the CIA, Bourne has a few allies. Joan Allen reprises her role as Deputy Director Pam Landy, an incorruptible force within the agency who would like Bourne to be brought in with minimal bloodshed. She tries to assist Bourne within the agency and tangles her antlers with the violence inclined Vosen, who has a more Bondian view of espionage. Julia Stiles also returns as the deer-in-headlights field agent Nicky Parsons, who may or may not have had some kind of deeper affection for Bourne in the past. As always, the cast is formidable and thankless. As Bourne movies go, this is probably my least favorite, since it lacks both the novel conceit of the “Bourne Identity” (superhuman amnesiac), and the emotional oomph of “The Bourne Supremacy.” “Supremacy” was an action film that moved me with its underlying humanity. Despite being about a killing machine, it was strangely touching, a revenge film that ultimately showed why revenge doesn’t work. “Ultimatum” is fine for what it is, a sleek action movie with an existential trajectory, but the series is moving away from the pastures of invention into the ghettos of formula. What was once new isn’t so new anymore. The Politics of Bourne A lot of film critics, particularly in the indie rag circuit, have championed the film’s progressive politics. Of course, any action film that effectively combines humane politics with smashing entertainment is of considerable interest to film fans on the left. Perhaps the most heartening development of the series is the move away from the world of Bond clichés: the spy as world class playboy who spends much of his time burning Her Majesty’s tax dollars on roulette tables and fast women. This spy was more or less retired by the last Bond, Bronsan, in subversive films like “The Tailor of Panama,” where the MI6 is portrayed as hopelessly corrupt and corner cutting, and the spy little more than a womanizing conman. Bourne doesn’t really reflect the reality of spies so much as the often well founded paranoia surrounding intelligence agencies, the sense that many have that spies are less about protecting our national interests than they are about violating our rights. The scene at Waterloo Station thrives on that paranoia by showing how easy it would be for the state to abuse the ubiquitous security cameras in London for nefarious purposes. Bourne is a center-left superhero, an unstoppable maiming machine that reads the Guardian and sticks it to the man, a much needed antidote to the unquestioning moral simplicity of the James Bond universe where MI6 and the CIA devote their time to taking down evil doers as opposed to, say, foreign governments. We’re certainly living in paranoid times, like those Manchurian days leading into the late 1960s, when we find ourselves rooting for a hero who attacks the US government directly, if only to ask existential questions or exact revenge. But the Bourne movies are far from radical, since it’s never the United States or the government at large that is to blame for Bourne’s misfortunes, but dangerous black ops operating illegally within the darkened corridors of the CIA. Joan Allen’s character represents what Americans want to believe about their national character: “the bad guys are an isolated cadre within the government, and if the good guys can bring their activities to light, things will return to normal,” as if the CIA was ever a normal agency using legal methods. Whether you’re for or against the CIA’s activities, I think we can all agree that they’ve never dealt with conventional threats in conventional ways- they’re not paid for oversight after all, but for the dirty work that makes the vast wealth and power of the United States possible. I have no doubt that if some rogue agent like Bourne uncovered a blackbriar like operation there would be public outrage- well, on the left. But I can also imagine the CIA and our sitting president dismissing the accusations with a wave of their hand and Fox News calling for Bourne’s arrest as a traitor, followed by public amnesia a year later. Ultimately, the films are a left-liberal fantasy, unimpeachably moral but also naively idealistic about the possibility of change within the system or the localized nature of the problem. But this is just a lot of talk. In the end, we watch the Bourne movies for their tough hand to hand combat scenes, technically insane car and foot chases, exotic locales, and for the inward looking Bourne, who covers vast mental as well as physical space as he comes to know and understand himself. They’re a lot of fun. Now we just have to pray that Hollywood black ops close the Bourne file before the enterprise runs aground.
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Jan 15, 2008 08:40
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 23:00 |
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