The Bourne Identity (2002) - 7/10

It was interesting revisiting The Bourne Identity after a good amount of time had passed since my last watch. I really loved the Bourne series when they were first released. In retrospect, they were also released at a very timely moment. However, time has also not been the kindest to this movie. If this was my first time watching it, I wouldn't find it particularly special. But let's jump into the rubric.

 1. Acting 

Overall, the acting in The Bourne Identity is pretty good. Matt Damon was already an established actor at this point, but had mostly been in mid-to-low budget art house films. This was his biggest full 'leading man' type roles and his first foray into action star territory. As Bourne, Damon is able to tap into a stoic charm and pathos that makes it easy to empathize with the mysterious character. The film also needs the empathy to work since its clear early on the Bourne has a deadly past. Damon also seems to excel in the more physical aspects of the job. A good deal of the stunt work is clearly performed by Damon himself and looks great. 

Franka Potente co-stars with Damon as his love interest and companion in unraveling the central mystery. She does a pretty solid job without a ton of stuff to do in the script. Her approach relies mostly on body language and subtle glaces to sell her growing attraction to Damon. It requires a deft touch, but the script and plot don't seem to allow for anything more explicit. 

As for the romance between the two - Damon and Potente seem to have some chemistry, but the love plot lines really don't sell completely to me. I'd lean more on this being a writing flaw than purely an acting one however. 

The rest of the cast does fine work as well. I think the best performances outside the main leads comes from the various sparring scenes between Chris Cooper and Brian Cox. The veteran actors do a great job serving mostly as sources of exposition dumps, but their interactions are the real strength. They are able to tap into something that gives the audience a sense of two rivals or friends that have a complex or fraught relationship off screen. 

2. Cinematography 

The cinematography for the film is a bit of a mixed bag. The handheld camera style is a good way to give your scenes a sense of kineticism and tension, but I think it also hurts some of action scenes. The color tone of the film is also interesting. Sometimes the gray and lighter blue color tints look great and fit well with the tense thriller nature, but other times it can make things look visually dull. 

3. Production/Costume Design

The movie benefits from filming in real world locations. The European centric setting is not only a visually interesting backdrop, but it also isolates the character by placing him in a foreign setting in addition to his memory loss. It also serves the plot since getting to see Bourne move in and out of various languages sells his spy skills.  

I did think it was an interesting choice in how they designed the Treadstone headquarters. On one hand, you could argue the trimmed down and simplistic depiction makes sense for an extremely secretive team that basically 'hides' within the greater CIA. In other words, it's meant to seem unassuming. On the other hand, I think it undermines the operation for the audience. This is supposed to be a sophisticated and elite program of super spies, yet the central office looks like its setup in the back of a strip mall? 

4. Writing 

The writing for The Bourne Identity is a pretty solid adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel of the same name. It trims a lot of the fat and creates a succinct film version. However, the dialogue is certainly bare bones and a bit repetitive. The Treadstone characters mostly just talk about 'bringing Bourne in' over and over and Bourne mostly just tells Marie that she needs to leave and go to the police. 

As for the plot, it is a pretty smart concept for a spy thriller - super spy loses memory but retains all the skills.  Then he embarks on a journey to figure out his identity by reverse engineering his tasking. The only real downside I think is that the audience will catch on pretty early to who Bourne was and then it becomes the character playing catch up to the audience (called dramatic irony) which can run the risk of being a bit boring if not done right. We only get to actually move onto the next logical step of Bourne rebelling against his past and Treadstone in the final 15 minutes or so. 

With that said, there are little touches in the screenplay that are nice ideas. For example, I like the scene where Bourne and Marie are preparing to retrieve a clue in the Hotel Regina. The scene starts with a familiar design - Bourne is narrating the plan for how Marie will go into the Hotel and scout it out for him and then calling him with the information. At the same time the audience is being shown Marie actually executing the plan. Except here we get a quick and smart subversion. We cut to Bourne, looking worried, calling the phone in the hotel lobby. Suddenly Marie knocks on the phone booth and hands him the invoice they were going to eventually steal. This bit of writing does a couple of clever things in a very succinct way. First, we keep the audience on their toes. The setup is familiar and the audience is expecting the visual scene to follow the narration. Instead they flip it on its head. Next, we get insight into the characters. From Bourne's narrations we learn all the different things that he is constantly thinking of and how detail oriented he is. We also get insight into Marie. She thinks in a different way than Bourne and uses her normal people skills to achieve the same outcome as Bourne would have. Lastly, we get a character moment for Marie. Up until this point, she has been fairly passive in how the story progresses. Now she gets to actually effect the progression of the plot and becomes more important in the events. It's succinct story telling, engaging for the audience, and informs character - and it is all accomplished in under 3 minutes.

 

5. Sound Design 

This is another area where things are a bit hit or miss. This film came out in 2002, but feature a lot of the same action sounds of a 80s or 90s movie. More specifically, that kind of exaggerated gunfire sounds and 'woosh' punches that have luckily fallen out of style. I like a good foley artist, but this felt a bit stuck in the past for a movie that was considered 'ahead of its time' at release. 

6. Editing

The film clocks in at just shy of 2 hours so it keeps a nice pace. It also is willing to take time to dig into longer sequences such as the car chase. However, I cannot get behind this style of action editing. I've talked about this is a flaw many times, but this series does it a lot. To be fair, you can still follow everything happening in the scenes. And there is something to the kinetics that make the characters seem to be moving extra fast. But, if you watch a fight scene, there is a cut after every single punch or kick or whatever. Basically every second that passes involves a cut. It's just really not for me. 

7. Visual Effects 

Most effects are done practically and VFX mostly just supports the stunt work. There is a great gas explosion, but not a ton stands out beyond that. We did get the obligatory early 2000s techno nonsense where someone demands a guy at a computer to 'enhance!'.  

8. Originality or Strength of Adaptation 

Like I mentioned briefly earlier, this is a succinct version of the novel by the same name. It manages to capture a lot, at least plot wise, from the book. However, as with most adaptations, certain things do fall off for the sake of brevity. I read the books too long ago, but if I had to guess - a good deal of the relationship building between Maria and Jason that takes place in the novel gets cut out. 

I will say though- with spy thrillers like this, the audience does get the benefit of seeing the action scenes actually come to life and are much more visceral. 

9. Stunt Coordination 

The stunt work on the film is great and probably where this movie succeeds the most. In fact, the highly technical and fast paced fight choreography was certainly ahead of its time within this genre. The problem, which I already mentioned, is that the filmmakers are unwilling to just stay in the same shot for more than 2 seconds so all of the hard work of the stunt teams don't really survive the edit. 

Another critique I have is that for a film so dedicated to being a grounded spy thriller, the staircase jump at the end feels out of place. Don't get me wrong - it's cool. But, the outlandishness of that move and the gunshot the occurs on the way down feels like it's in the wrong movie. 

As far as additional praise goes though, I like how the action scenes inform character and plot. The early fight/action scenes help sell the audience that Jason is a extremely skilled assassin type which serves the plot. Then, as the film progresses, we start to learn about Jason through his actions. More specifically, we learn that he is extremely skilled, versatile, and maybe more importantly clever. His improvisations and his thinking outside the box to get the upper hand show that he is 'special' compared to the other Treadstone agents that get sent after him. This is an essential part of the film, because the screenplay keeps the dialogue mostly to a minimum.  

10. Direction 

Doug Liman is a great director and has worked in a lot of different genres that have an action flavor. With that said, his approach to the action is just off putting to me. Nevertheless, this film was a bit of a game changer at the time of its release and that is, at least in some parts, because of Liman.  

Legacy/Final Thoughts

 I alluded earlier that The Bourne Identity is a bit of a time capsule of a movie. At the time of its release it was considered to be a revelation in many ways and became very popular. On the flip side, watching it over 20 years later, I instead see a movie that now feels a bit outdated at times. For instance, I've already bemoaned the shaky-cam-rapid-edit style of the fight scenes; but at its release, that was a fresh concept and highly stylized approach that was praised for its visceral qualities. And none of this is to say that shaky cam has completely gone away - rather it has become much more refined overtime. Now we have filmmakers who can capture that same handheld style without it looking overly raw or having it be so hyperbolic-ally edited.

Apart from its technical aspects, this film was also timely in the sense of its central plot. TBI was originally written in the 80s during the Reagan era and its anti-government sentiment was a driving force behind the rise of neoliberalism at the time. Then we flash forward to the release of the film adaptation and those anti-government sentiments are still relevant - just in a different way. In many ways 9/11 reinvigorated a sense of patriotism amongst Americans, but, it was also a time when the Patriot Act was a very divisive move that infringed on the rights of citizens and gave birth to serious concerns about government surveillance and 'Big Brother'. The fact that this movie features a spy rebelling against clandestine operations within the US government made it ahead of its time and represented a subject matter that many more TV shows and films would continue exploring over the next decade.