When this movie came out almost twenty years ago, the expectations just were NOT very high as Matt Damon wasn’t considered an action hero, the director (Doug Liman) wasn’t considered an action director, the series of novels it was based upon had waned in popularity, and most big budget Hollywood action movies at the time were much louder and more bombastic….along the lines of recent hits produced by Jerry Bruckheimer including The Rock, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Armageddon.
But this was a DIFFERENT kind of action movie with a more thoughtful tone, more grounded plot, more subtly paranoia about key institutions like the CIA (this was released less than a year after the 9/11 attacks, and most notably action sequences which felt both more fluid and ground-level. To the surprise of most, it received almost universal acclaim AND blockbuster success launching a very lucrative franchise of Bourne films for years to come – it’s time to revisit the movie that started it all….
Host: Geoff Gershon
Producer: Marlene Gershon
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When this movie came out almost twenty years ago, the expectations just were NOT very high as Matt Damon wasn’t considered an action hero, the director (Doug Liman) wasn’t considered an action director, the series of novels it was based upon had waned in popularity, and most big budget Hollywood action movies at the time were much louder and more bombastic….along the lines of recent hits produced by Jerry Bruckheimer including The Rock, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Armageddon.
But this was a DIFFERENT kind of action movie with a more thoughtful tone, more grounded plot, more subtly paranoia about key institutions like the CIA (this was released less than a year after the 9/11 attacks, and most notably action sequences which felt both more fluid and ground-level. To the surprise of most, it received almost universal acclaim AND blockbuster success launching a very lucrative franchise of Bourne films for years to come – it’s time to revisit the movie that started it all….
Host: Geoff Gershon
Producer: Marlene Gershon
https://livingforthecinema.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Living-for-the-Cinema-Podcast-101167838847578
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/livingforthecinema/
Letterboxd:
https://letterboxd.com/Living4Cinema/
https://livingforthecinema.com/
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THE BOURNE IDENTITY - 2002
Directed by Doug Liman (Audio clip)
Starring Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Josh Hamilton, and Clive Owen
Genre: Spy Action Thriller
As far as I’m concerned, The Bourne Identity is THE prototypical action film of the 21st Century - considering it was long delayed, had a troubled production, and a confluence of so many disparate elements, it's just a minor miracle that this came together as well as it did!
The movie kicks off with Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne being found floating in the Mediterranean with several bullet holes in his back – he is rescued by an Italian fishing vessel and a kindly sailor who helps nurse him back to health. Once he recovers however, Bourne realizes that he still cannot remember who he is – he just knows that he was shot multiple times before almost drowning with nothing to reveal who he was besides a bank account number projected by a small device which was planted in his hip. Once the boat docks off the coast of Italy, our amnesiac hero then embarks on finding out who he is….hence The Bourne Identity. (Audio clip)
Franka Potente co-stars as Marie, a Northern European drifter whom he encounters while he’s on the run. Damon and Potente's scenes together are the heart of this movie - it's Bourne who is trying to figure out who he is but we see as much of Marie trying to figure out how she wants to fit into this. On paper, she's playing a typical action love interest and we've seen Oscar nominated actresses from Elizabeth Shue to Brie Larson to Halle Berry just kinda sink into roles like this. But Potente brought something unique to this: it's mostly conveyed with a lot of well-shot pensive looks on her face as John Powell's breezy synth score plays in the background...whether we know what she's thinking, it's still the look of someone who has experienced some strange things herself, we're intrigued to find out what she brings to the table with Bourne's journey. I'm still kinda bummed that she really couldn't contribute her charms to future installments and though the other Bourne films are all good, they were all missing this key ingredient in retrospect. (Audio clip)
The action sequences are taut and clever and quick - Damon really does pull off the physical aspects of this role effectively, he's a convincing action hero but even moreso because you believe it when he's surprised with some of the things he can do. It's a weird coincidence that this came out just a month after Spiderman...watching Bourne discover his "powers" was actually more thrilling than anything we saw Peter Parker do on a rooftop in that movie!
The supporting cast also shines - Clive Owen, Bryan Cox, and Chris Cooper all seem over-qualified for the limited roles they're given but they are each genuinely entertaining to watch....just watching Cooper do his own office-bound desktop pit version of Lt. Gerard from The Fugitive with the camera circling around him is a blast to watch and it makes those scenes of folks just talking ABOUT Jason Bourne almost as entertaining as the scenes featuring Bourne himself. (Audio clip)
Every sequence works in this movie, there are literally NO bad scenes - yes the whole Wombosi subplot doesn't really go anywhere we weren't expecting but it never wears out its welcome and gives us just enough to move the story forward....not least of all with that flashback scene on the boat, it gives us a MUCH better "Martha!" moment than we would see in Batman V Superman 14 years later! 😛
Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film):
Considering that this came out amidst the pop music dark ages of the early ‘00’s, The Bourne Identity has a surprisingly strong soundtrack. Yes it was a pretty sad time for film soundtracks when Nu Metal and/or watered down grunge/aggro-rock was being shoe-horned into the soundtrack of every movie’s soundscape…..from Limp Bizkit giving us their spin of the Mission Impossible theme for MI2 to the first Spiderman movie closing out with….cough…..cough…..Nickelback playing over the end credits. Fortunately the first ‘Bourne soundtrack has NONE of that…..it includes a few well-chosen techno songs along with a synth score from composer John Powell which is both propulsive AND elegant.
Among the standouts is some soothing travelling music from Powell’s score featuring a mid-tempo beat coming from xylophones as we hear a mixture of strings and piano playing over it – we hear this during Jason and Marie’s drive to Paris and the track is called fittingly, “Bourne on Land.” (Audio clip)
Another highlight is a catchy techno song from British trance DJ and electronic music legend Paul Oakenfold called “Ready Steady Go” which came from his album released the same year, Bunkka. It plays over an intense car chase along the Seine River in the middle of Paris as Jason (with Marie) tries to evade authorities – pretty exciting fast-paced music to hear over a car chase and it fits the scene perfectly! (Audio clip)
But I’m sure for myself and many others, THE top needle-drop has to be the song which kicks off the end credits for this movie and every other Bourne movie since then…”Extreme Ways” by Moby from his sixth studio album released the same year, 18. To start, the song has a distinct pair of repeating opening notes which are just unmistakable….they are basically electronically altered violins which sound as if they are letting off a war cry or setting off an alarm. It’s a nice way to alert you that THIS chapter of the Bourne saga has concluded and that Jason Bourne WILL of course return. 😉 And what follows is a high energy electronic rock ditty actually featuring the vocals of Richard Melville Hall himself – this song has become known as the official theme music for Jason Bourne, not bad! (Audio clip)
Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film):
In the early ‘00’s, there were few up-and-coming actors who had me MORE excited to see their next project than Clive Owen…..after seeing his breakout performance in 2000’s Croupier, I was just all-in for him to take on the role of James Bond. Dude just had the right mix of charm, danger, and swagger….and he looked good in a suit of course. Well Daniel Craig eventually took over that role for Casino Royale and even though that turned out very well as far as I’m concerned, I always felt like Owen never got the big-time spy role that he just seemed IDEAL for.
But the closest he ever came to playing an actual clandestine agent or “asset” of some sort was as “The Professor” - one of the sleeper Treadstone agents who’s activated to take out Jason Bourne in this movie. And he’s really quite good….even with minimal dialogue….and in only two scenes. ☹ Hey this was Damon’s movie cool, I get it….he’s the hero and he does a great job. But WHY did they have to kill off The Professor SO damn quickly, after his first and only face-off with Bourne in that forest shoot-out? I also understand that he’s an antagonist to Bourne but they brought back several OTHER nefarious characters for the sequels, including another Treadstone sleeper who Bourne has to fight in the first act of the next movie, The Bourne Supremacy. I mean you have an actor the caliber of Owen and with his screen presence, why not keep him around as a rival asset who’s playing cat and mouse with Bourne?? Considering that the producers and studio eventually tried to expand this universe further with the ‘Legacy spin-off about ten years later with Jeremy Renner and the eventual TV show, “Treadstone” it just always felt like SUCH a missed opportunity that they dispensed with Owen and The Professor so quickly in the first movie…. (Audio clip)
Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):
There are at least seven standout action/suspense set-pieces within this movie and like I said, NO bad scenes…..so it’s hard to narrow this category down so I’ll keep it to just two.
If I had to pick one action sequence which really stood out to me, it would actually be early in this film when Bourne goes to a local embassy and gets spotted waiting in line. It all kicks off with the line uttered by the head of security to him in the middle of a crowded lobby, “YOU! Red bag, the RED BAG, stop right there!!!!” (Audio clip) We see Bourne just stand there calmly holding up both arms including one with the red bag while scanning around him…..he’s surrounded by two armed guards plus that security officer…..all is calm and quiet. And then WHOOSH….we see him seemingly disarm and put each of them down….in what SEEMS to be one fluid motion, it’s damn impressive! Powell’s score then kicks in….we see a mini-montage of a small army of security personnel arming themselves and then scattering around the embassy as we hear alarms blaring…..and what do we see Bourne doing during this? He’s not running, he’s WALKING calmly and quickly through the hallways – using an evacuation map he grabbed of the wall along with one radio he nabbed from one of the security guys – simply trying to find the quickest way out without drawing attention to himself. This is just an example of the RARE action sequence which is quite exciting despite minimal actual fighting, no gunplay, and ZERO body count!
The other standout sequence for me comes just a bit later in the movie after Jason has met Marie and are now on the road to Paris – they stop at a road-side dinner and have an interesting exchange where Jason examines his current state in trying to figure out who he was before he contracted amnesia at the opening of the movie. It’s a short conversation but it does a very effective job of character-building. (Audio clip)
MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):
As tempting as it is to choose Matt Damon – and he’s certainly great in this movie – it has to be the director, Doug Liman, for directing a PERFECT prototype for action movies over the next two decades. Liman just made so many offbeat choices with regards to casting, shot selection, and pacing – several of which he aggressively pushed for during production – and it all came together to result in an action movie with an ideal balance between spectacle, mystery, and character development. Just as a prime example, that late face-off in the woods between Damon and Clive Owen’s assassin was a sequence that Liman had to fight the studio and producers at the time to both film and preserve for the final cut – it’s just not your typical set piece as it’s very quiet and it actually helps build sympathy for someone who our protagonist is facing off against. But it’s acted and shot just exquisitely to give the audience a real sense of the type of “asset” that Bourne was programmed into becoming and the context of the world within which that was happening…..and it happens to be a banger of an action sequence to boot. Just SO many grace notes like that orchestrated by Liman – along with several strong scenes featuring Potente’s Marie – which help elevate The Bourne Identity above your typical actioner and/or spy thriller.
Since his breakout debut with Swingers 26 years ago – former episode by the way, check tht one out – Liman has become one of the more underrated genre filmmakers out there but has also built up a reputation for being quite demanding with studios, always pushing for more takes and more scenes during production – with a few exceptions, I can say that his efforts have resulted in very strong movies. The Bourne Identity is a prime example of that and for that reason, he is the MVP.
(Audio clip)
Final Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Almost twenty years after it was first released, The Bourne Identity remains a seminal movie for not only the action genre but spy thrillers as well.
Streaming on HBO Max
And that ends another BOURNE AGAIN review
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