Jason Bourne

Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, and Vincent Cassel
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 123 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2016

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Rating notes: Mature themes and violence

This action spy-thriller is the fifth Bourne movie in a popular series that began in 2002 with the making of “The Bourne Identity”, and is the sequel to “The Bourne Ultimatum” (2007). The film returns Matt Damon to the role he left in that movie. It also brings back Paul Greengrass, the Director of “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “The Bourne Supremacy” (2004). The film focuses on Jason Bourne’s memories of the past, and his attempts to confront his freshly discovered identity. Jason Bourne disappeared at the conclusion of “The Bourne Ultimatum” when the world was seriously under threat, and now he finds he is being hunted down for what he knows. The world is still under threat, and in the meantime some very significant people have come to the conclusion he can’t be trusted. He has a history of blowing the cover on CIA special operations and the CIA wants him out of the way. Tommy Lee Jones has the role of the CIA Director in charge, and Bourne has to survive attacks from his fellow-CIA operators, all of whom have been trained like him to kill expertly. The presence of amnesia is always a good plot device for maintaining effective tension, and this film has Bourne with serious memory retention issues determined to deliver justice for the way he thinks he has been treated in the past. Just because Bourne is back, “doesn’t mean he knows everything” – which is a very good tag-line for a movie, that wants the viewer to anticipate a whole lot of thrills ahead. Bourne knows he is a wanted man, and he has to use his skills as a trained assassin (honed over 32 kills) to stay alive. In trying to give meaning to his memories, Bourne agrees somewhat reluctantly to give assistance to a former co-worker, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), when she becomes implicated in a hacking conspiracy (“worse than Snowden”). The hacking of secretly transmitted information gives the movie contemporary relevance, and the film explores viewers’ suspicions throughout – there are multiple betrayals, cyber-surveillance issues, mis-perceived loyalties, crises of trust, and lots of unexpected plot revelations. The sequences in the film are fast-paced and exciting, and show the usual genre-displays of spy violence – hopping from country to country. The action-scenarios are well photographed and choreographed, and they bring novel elements to sequences like the proverbial chase. The film makes chase-activity an especially exciting one to watch. Chases in this film include up and down the alley-ways and steps of Athens by motorcycle, and against the traffic in Las Vegas by car. Greengrass uses rapid editing and quick hand-held camera work to impressively create feelings of urgency and immediacy. The film aims for solid action, and morality is shady for most of the characters in the film, even Bourne. Overall, the movie maintains its tension by being directed in paranoid style. It falls short of the degree of knife-edge feeling of persecution that characterised the classic political thriller, “The Parallax View” (1974), but its high voltage, staccato style keeps the paranoia well and truly alive. The overarching theme of the movie is “the right to privacy vs. public safety”‘ and such a theme is not likely to lose its relevance in the times ahead. Most notably, however, the movie brings Matt Damon back to the starring role, and Paul Greengrass to direct him once again, and they work very well together to reinvigorate a well known franchise. The film delivers action-packed adventure in past-paced thriller style. Damon stylishly and energetically acts the hunted-haunted hero, patriot as well as rebel, to prove himself once again, and his fresh identity will undoubtedly pave the way for more sequels such as this one to come.