Friday, August 3, 2007

Movie review: The Bourne Ultimatum

Oooh! Gun-cam!

By John P. Meyer

The Bourne Ultimatum

All he wanted was to disappear; instead, Jason Bourne is now hunted by the people who made him what he is--legendary assassin. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, he is undeterred by the barrage of bullets and a new generation of highly-trained killers. Bourne has only one objective: to go back to the beginning and find out who he was. Now, in the new chapter of this espionage series, Bourne will hunt down his past in order to find a future. He must travel from Moscow, Paris and London to Tangier and New York City as he continues his quest to find the real Jason Bourne--all the while trying to outmaneuver the scores of cops, federal officers and Interpol agents with him in their crosshairs.

Source: Cinema Source

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Nothing cranks my "RIGHT ON!" handle like watching lone-wolf amnesiac super-spy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) outwit and out-maneuver the CIA criminals-in-homeland-security-clothing at their own devious games. In this third and (reportedly) final movie outing based on the hit Robert Ludlum literary trilogy, you'll thrill to the hectic exploits of so many slick espionage operators that you may find yourself reaching for the Wet Ones to wipe away the plot-twisting grease.

If you've recently viewed Bourne Part II (The Bourne Supremacy), then you'll have no trouble leaping right into the action of Part III (The Bourne Ultimatum), because it picks up precisely where the last episode left off: with Jason Bourne being chased by police through the night-time streets of Moscow. He's limping and wounded, but with his survival instincts thus fully engaged this just serves to make him more dangerous to his unfortunate pursuers.

In the big picture puppet-master scheme of things, these would include a new set of bad guys at New York's CIA HQ, led by the delightfully ruthless David Strathairn as Asst. Dir. Noah Vosen. Vosen's long ago jettisoned whatever conscience he might have possessed before hearkening to the siren call of clandestine government service; he's the sort of guy Dick Cheney might think twice about inviting along on a bird hunt.

David Strathairn as Noah Vosen.

As we discover early on, Bourne's memory is returning - he experiences intense flashbacks to the early days of his super-resourceful government assassin training, and by intense I mean they knock him to the floor and take over, leading to some close calls with the sorts of flatfoot antagonists who would, under normal circumstances, have not even the ghost of a chance of laying eyes on him. And then an actual newspaper story appears referring to Bourne by name and hinting at a U.S. black operation known as "Blackfriar" - leading both Bourne and one of Vosen's "assets" (i.e., killers on retainer) to seek out the reporter responsible for the article.

Can Bourne extract the feckless investigative journalist from the tightening CIA noose and obtain the identity of his source? I'm not telling, but therewith begins a series of cat and mouse encounters that serve to reintroduce us to players from previous episodes, including sympathetic CIA case manager Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) and perky overseas operative Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), who always seems to stumble into Bourne at the most inopportune of times. Let the stumbling continue.

The relentless hard-driving action is carried along on the wave of composer John Powell's relentless hard-driving score, so that during the infrequent intervals of quietude (even the most frenetic of action films requires periods of exposition) we in the audience are left gasping for breath, while those of us perverse enough to be taking notes scribble away madly so as not to miss the next car chase or reckless rooftop acrobatics.

Director Paul Greengrass (who also helmed Bourne Part II) maintains the cinematographic convention of unsteady camera setups, though the shakiness is not so disconcerting as his use of what I'll refer to as "full frame disorientation," whereby the camera zooms in tight on people in a crowd or cars careening through a busy intersection, so that when fists fly or collisions occur they come as more of a shock (because we don't see them coming). Nervous viewers might want to consider Depends.

Bourne meets up with Nicky Parsons. Again.

Speaking of which, the story line depends heavily on the employment of cell phones, video surveillance and high-tech globally-networked monitoring systems. Amidst this familiar technology a cool new device makes its onscreen debut: the gun-cam. That's right, one of the CIA "assets" sent to put Bourne down enters a darkened suspect facility bearing a pistol equipped with its own swing-out adjustable view screen (presumably attached to a bore-sighted video camera), whereby the wielder can send back to agency headquarters real-time via-satellite images of whatever his gun is pointing at. Which, before too long, turns out to be the receiving end of Jason Bourne's right uppercut and/or striking foot (I forget which), relaying a satisfactorily communicative collection of static back to the monitors dominating Noah Vosen's command center. Touché.

With all this bleeding-edge technology at everyone's fingertips, how ironic it is that, towards the end of things, a decidedly low-tech device is called into play to save the day and transmit details of Project Blackfriar's evil deeds into responsible hands.

"Parking in this town is a nightmare!"

Damon's Bourne has never been more adept at kicking the ever-loving crap out of anyone who gets in his way and escaping pursuit, no matter how determined. Worthy of particular mention is the book-and-towel-fu he inflicts upon an unfortunate aggressor, giving new meaning to the term "spinal injury."

The acting is fine across the board, with the aforementioned Mr. Strathairn dominating the bad guy roll call; supporting him from the wings are Scott Glenn as Director Ezra Kramer, who knows too much to consider playing things straight, and Albert Finney as Dr. Albert Hirsch, mastermind behind the Treadstone/Blackfriar mind-frack program. Ms. Allen and Ms. Stiles shine by low-keying their roles, while Edgar Ramirez and Joey Ansah serve as worthy assassin foes for Bourne.

All told (and all tolled), The Bourne Ultimatum provides a fitting conclusion to the Jason Bourne saga. Prosit!

WELL, WHICH IS IT?: "Jesus Christ, it's Jason Bourne!" - Noah Vosen to his command group, having spotted his nemesis on closed circuit video.

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