The Bourne Ultimatum
reviewed by Samuel Osborn
Director: Paul Greengrass
Screenplay: Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns, George Nolfi (based on the
novel by Robert Ludlum)
Cast: Matt Damon, Joan Allen, David Strathairn
MPAA Classification: PG-13
The auditorium in which I screened The Bourne Ultimatum was filled to
capacity and humming comfortably with the floating refreshment of air
conditioning when I took my seat. By the film's end, the theatre was
still full to capacity but the room's temperature had risen several
uncomfortable degrees. The air conditioning was furiously rattling,
expelling refrigerated air as efficiently as possible, but it couldn't
keep up with the perspiration-inducing intensity that the film had
caused our heart-rates to rise to. The film had indirectly made the
room hotter. Talk about global warming.
Stoic, solemn, and robotic, Jason Bourne returns for his trilogy
capper, The Bourne Ultimatum. Less of a continuation and more of an
upgrade from The Bourne Supremacy, this third installment, working off
of Robert Ludlum's source material again, invents new memories for the
amnesiac hero to remember. What used to be Operation Treadstone has
now been upgraded to Operation Blackbriar and Mr. Bourne was (of
course) involved with it in some corner of his blurry past.
As Ultimatum picks up almost immediately after Supremacy left off,
Jason Bourne is still on the run, hurdling cops like leapfrog and
outrunning the CIA like they were a pack of blind, one-legged cats.
Falling in beside the defensive, calculating Pamela Landy (Joan Allen)
as the CIA's resident Bourne expert is Noah Vosen (David Strathairn).
Vosen heads up the Blackbriar gang and has hooked a reporter, Simon
Ross (Paddy Considine), whose exposure stories on Bourne have
uncovered confidential information. Because the information concerns
Bourne's past and because it's a matter of national security, Ms.
Landy, Mr. Vosen, and Mr. Bourne are all on his trail.
Director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, United 93) wastes zero
time in mining the action from this storyline. As a filmmaker, his
edit points are quick, his camera shaky, and his close-ups constant.
He wants realism and he wants his action to appear in real-time. The
pseudo-documentary style he's becoming known for is at its best here,
muting the spectacle of his stunts to make room for believability in
the play-pretend realism. And since it appears many of his stunts were
actually coordinated on set-and not in front of a computer monitor-the
realism is certainly accepted as, well, real.
For this reason, The Bourne Ultimatum sprints as a missile for the
moon. It's fast and sometimes infuriatingly so, as it rounds plot
corners at double-time, leaving us confused and choking on its dust.
But all is forgiven when a clever foot-chase is launched, when Bourne
kicks down the clutch of a motorcycle, as he hijacks an NYPD squad
car, as he leaps from a roof, etc, etc. Luckily his stunts are as loud
as they are intelligent. And since Bourne stays generally low-tech
with his tricks, he becomes a sort of spy-version of MacGyver.
Though I'm not positive as to how essential this installment is to the
Bourne legacy. CIA Director Ezra Kramer is discussing the Bourne
subject with Ms. Landy early on in the story. Both are unsure of
Bourne's importance to the agency, weighing out the possibility of
giving up the search altogether. Landy mentions that maybe he's not
involved with this particular quarrel at all; that this isn't Bourne's
fight. Kramer shrugs, frowns, and says, "Well, let's keep looking." It
seems even the fictional players are stretching their connection to
Bourne to keep this story chugging. And it's true; the Bourne legacy
doesn't require this story to be told. This becomes apparent when the
same good joke from the second film is repeated twice more in the
third; and also when the action set-pieces are nearly the same, if not
extended to a more satisfying length. Like I said, this is more of an
upgrade than a sequel.
But don't think I'm complaining. The intelligence of the screenplay is
a damned marvel. To craft the delicate logic of such a complex CIA
tale deserves a merit on its own. And so what if it's a formula their
running through the Hollywood factory for another go-round? The last
film was the best spy film in ages. Just imagine how good this
upgraded version is. And technically The Bourne Ultimatum does have
its own (very valid) storyline that jet-sets Jason from Morocco to
Paris to London to Madrid and finally to good ole' Manhattan. And
though what character building that's continued here may not be
required viewing for any Bourne enthusiast, the power that David
Strathairn most certainly is. Skeletal and sever, Strathairn's Noah
Vosen is a formidable needle of a villain. He's human, as all CIA
leaders claim to be, but that trait is buried beneath a permafrost
mounted by his overwhelming coldness. Strathairn drives this storyline
into a realm of quasi-originality, making The Bourne Ultimatum
relevant enough for us to enjoy it unabashedly. Because of him we
swallow again the tired conceit of Bourne's lost memory and his
lingering guilt. We admit that, yeah, this truly is a magnificent
flick.
Samuel Osborn
Movies