The Bourne Identity

If you can't tell, I'm in a little bit of an international spy thriller movie mood lately. And what better movie to slake that thirst than the movie that really revolutionized the entire genre: The Bourne Identity.

Its pretty obvious that the Bourne movies had an incredible impact on the genre. Since 2002, spy movies have been trying to recreate what the Bourne movies did for such a long time. And if I'm continuing the rant that I had in my Legends review, Bourne came at just the right time.

After 9/11, the spy genre was no longer the campy, Pierce Brosnan Bond hokey genre that it had been for years. Suddenly everything became serious and everything became political. I think the reason Mission Impossible 2 is looked down upon so much was because that was the point where the genre had almost become a joke of itself because while I love that movie, its campy as hell. And why Brosnan's Bond career went down the tubes because Die Another Day just wasn't the Spy film we wanted in these desperate and confusing times.

The movie we needed was The Bourne Identity.

The Bourne Identity opens up to a floating body of a nameless man (played by Matt Damon) with amnesia. He gets picked up by some Italian fishermen. The only thing that they found with him was a clue pointing him towards a bank account in Zurich.

The man soon figures out not only that he calls himself Jason Bourne, but he has a wide variety of skills including speaking multiple languages, tying complex knots... oh and beating the shit out of people. All of these things come second nature to him and he is looking to figure out his past and who exactly he is.

All the while, the movie jumps to an agent with the CIA named Ward Abbott (played by Chris Cooper). Abbott is trying to deal with a rising political situation involving an exiled African dictator (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) who says that the CIA is trying to assassinate him.

Along with the African dictator, Abbott is trying to track down Bourne as there is a clear connection between Bourne and Abbott's covert CIA operations.

Now, if you don't know what that connection is, I don't know what rock you've been living under because if you don't know that, you really don't know anything about the Bourne movies. And the truth is, if you really watch this movie, that connection is pretty obvious.

If you don't know it, go watch this movie and come back to this review. While it might be considered spoilers, its not like I'm giving away the ending to the Sixth Sense here, it should be pretty obvious.

Abbott is the director of a secret CIA organization called Treadstone that uses CIA assets to perform the covert operations of the United States government in the international world. And the fun part is that throughout the movie you see these assets go out and kick some ass and they're going after Bourne at the same time.

I've already explained the majority of the plot but Jason Bourne must discover his past with the help of a German woman (who honestly is just a rando) (played by Franka Potente).

The short and face value story of this movie is that its great. Its a great spy thriller as our main character unravels the mystery behind his past. There are some great action sequences, the casting, I think it some of the best casting I could ever see in a movie, and the performances are great because of that great casting.

This is the role Matt Damon was born to play. I mean its been over a decade that he's played this role and he's going to be coming back to play the role again because its so iconic. This is where it all began and its great from the beginning. Its kind of fun watching this and then seeing where he is now with movies like The Martian. Frank Potente, even though she's not the greatest part of the movie, she still does a good job and creates a good counter to Damon's cold and frankly confused look throughout the movie.

I think its a role that really gets overlooked sometimes, but Chris Cooper as Ward Abbott is just fantastic. Without giving too much away, its a shame that he didn't come back for the later films because he was just pitch perfect in this film. The rest of the cast is pretty small, but they bring something really great to the film and it all ties together very, very well.

Now... is the movie perfect? Believe it or not. No.

And of course, here's the point where I say don't get me wrong. Because its true this movie is really great and its one of those movie I would recommend to anybody who loves the spy genre and want a well acted and action packed movie.

But when you compare this movie to the movies that follow, I really think that this is one of those cases where the sequels are better than the original.

And that's not on the performances or the story, although I would say Matt Damon came into the role more in later films.

The main part is the tempo of the film.

This movie is a slow burn. And again, don't get me wrong, a slow burn is not a bad thing. But this movie has a habit of having a lot of talking and figuring out the mystery with quick bursts of action here and there and I have to say, the later movies felt a little bit more balanced. Now, I might bite my words because Supremacy is also on Netflix so that review is coming soon, but from what I remember, this movie is a lot slower than the sequels and if I had hyped up The Bourne movies as these awesome action movies, the Bourne Identity might seem a bit boring to some people.

Also this is really nitpicking and more of a comical complaint than a real one but when I say everything got brought to the next level in the sequels, I mean everything including Damon's physique.

This isn't so much a complaint of the movie, and its not totally Damon's fault as he was younger and didn't really know what this franchise would turn into, but while he can still kick ass in this film, he looks pretty small compared to the physical monster that he would become in later.

Bourne is the kind of character that only got better with age and in Identity, while Damon was in his early thirties when they made it, he looks more like Will Hunting than he does Jason Bourne.

Again, not totally his fault, it just shows that the ante was raised with the later films and in retrospect, while Identity is a great film, it just got better and better as the sequels came out. And I can see that Damon's performance is only going to get better, especially with set photos for the 5th installment where he's returning, where we get this.

The man is a beast. 

But if you look at The Bourne Identity as its own film, its still really is great. I obviously am going to continue reviewing these Bourne movies and if I end up rethinking my position on the movies only got better with each sequel, I will have to redo this review. But on its own, The Bourne Identity is a solid film. Its got great action, great performances, a great backdrop, and a great story. 

The thing I like about this film is that it captured the feeling we had towards the genre without having to use ethnic stereotypes. Its not like 24 where Jack Bauer made us feel better about 9/11 by going after Middle Eastern terrorists. Jason Bourne opened up a fictional view into the lengths being taken to protect national security, something I think the United States became incredibly interested in by the time this movie came out. Like I said at the beginning of the review, Bourne was not campy, or hokey like popular spy thrillers had been. It was gritty and to the point and complex. There's no bad guy sitting in a chair stroking a cat at the end of The Bourne Identity, and it felt more real, something that we became more and more interested in in the 2000s. 

Whatever nitpicks I can come up for this film, there's no denying that it was a game changer and it would only continue to be one for the next five years. But that's a story for another review. 

Those are my thoughts on The Bourne Identity. Give me your thoughts in the comment section below. You can also send me your thoughts via Twitter @cmhaugen24. You can also send me your thoughts on movies I should review in the future. I'll definitely make them my priority. Follow me to get updates on future movie news and reviews. 

I'll leave you with this. While I don't watch Jimmy Kimmel that often because I don't think he's as good as other late night show hosts, I do enjoy watching all the clips of his feud with Matt Damon. Here's a relevant clip of that feud. Enjoy!