The Man Who Knew Too Little (#27: The Bourne Identity)

When I think Sean Connery, I think Indiana Jones' dad. Needless to say, I'm not a James Bond guy. 

 

I like the spy movies which focus on the minutiae of day to day spooking, like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or The Good Shepherd or Austin Powers. Given the choice between a conspiracy thriller like 3 Days of the Condor or an action packed globetrotter like Die Another Day, I'm taking 3 Days of the Condor every time.

All of which is a long way of saying, The Bourne Identity is my type of spy movie. But with more fight sequences.

#27: The Bourne Identity

Remember when people thought it was weird to cast Matt Damon as a lead in action movie? Yeah. That was stupid. On the upside, those people gave us this:

Damon plays Jason Bourne - which will probably be how 99% of moviegoers remember him despite great turns in everything from True Grit to The Informant. Or, at least, Damon plays a guy who is sometimes known as Jason Bourne. Washing up unconscious and bullet-ridden on a fishing boat in the Atlantic, Bourne has no memory of who he is. Following the only clue he has - a bank account number embedded in his hip - Bourne pulls a bunch of currency and stack of passports out of a safety deposit box. Soon after, he's throwing $20,000 at a stranger named Marie (the fantastic Franka Potente) to get him to Paris and away from the shadowy government agency that is chasing him. Bourne pieces a lot of it together, facing off with a retinue of great character actors (Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Walton Goggins!*, Clive Owen, to name a few) along the way, and earns himself and Marie some small peace - at least until the sequel (NEXT UP!).

The Bourne Identity is distinctive mainly for what it doesn't rely on. Namely: CGI; crazily implausible stunts; hyperactive close-ups and smash cuts. All of which are (sadly) staples of the modern action picture. Instead (despite its fairly ridiculous amnesiac assassin premise), the movie takes a gritty, bare-knuckle, these-people-could-do-this-stuff approach. And it pays off in spades.

There's a ton of great little touches that make everything seem grounded and real. Such as Bourne ripping an emergency map off the wall to plot his exit from American embassy security or quickly surveying a road atlas and interrogating Marie on her vehicle maintenance before the world's best car chase featuring a used Mini Cooper.

The wheels are a little splashy.

In no small part, the film works due to Damon's performance. Like Harrison Ford (and Bruce Willis, when he isn't just coasting) Damon has that eery ability to simultaneously to be an in-over-his-head regular Joe and a superhuman badass killing machine without cognitive dissonance splitting your brain in half. Cementing the Harrison Ford analogy, I think this scene is the most hilariously unexpected development in an action movie since Indy shot that dude with the swords in Raiders:

  

I think its safe to say that without Jason Bourne, the Daniel Craig iteration of James Bond would have never happened. As a proud owner of a Casino Royale DVD (yes, the only Bond movie we own), I'm good with that.

FINAL VERDICT: Keeper.

*If you're not watching Justified on FX, you should. Get it together, friend.