8/10 – Building on the rapid-fire momentum he created in 2004 with THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, director Paul Greengrass pushes the adrenaline meter even further in THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM. This is the third globe-trotting film adaptation loosely based on author Robert Ludlum’s popular “Bourne” series of modern spy novels. It brings to a close the ongoing plot of a superspy suffering memory loss and on the run from the organization that made him. It is also reportedly the last BOURNE outing for its star Matt Damon who has rightly earned his place in action cinema with his no-nonsense portrayal of David Webb, aka CIA operative Jason Bourne, a master of covert operations and hand-to-hand combat.
The film hits the ground running right from the start with rogue spy Jason Bourne outrunning CIA operatives on his trail. He is still trying to piece together his lost memory and now wants justice for the past murder of his girlfriend during a botched assassination attempt on his life. Bourne is drawn to a reporter (Paddy Considine) who has published an expose on the Bourne program and apparently has insider knowledge from a source who was there at the start. Just as he meets the reporter in London, the CIA close in and Bourne is forced to flee once again. He manages to discover the name of the reporter’s source and tracks him down, this time with the aid of Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), a CIA operative previously on a team to track Bourne down. Once again, the CIA are one step ahead of Bourne and now he must come to the rescue of Nicky who has also been branded a dangerous rogue agent.
Bourne’s journey finally comes full circle when he traces the origins of the program that made him back to New York. There, he plays a precarious cat and mouse game with the CIA to gain access to incriminating evidence and finally discover once and for all who he really is and how he got in this mess.
The great Scott Glenn (SILVERADO, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER) joins the cast as CIA director Ezra Kramer, the man who authorized the Bourne project and who sees Jason Bourne is a security threat. He puts the program’s operations chief Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) in charge of getting Bourne. Noah becomes the main foil for Bourne while Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), the person previously in charge of hunting him down, fills the role as the conscience of the CIA by trying to reel Bourne in without a fight.
The whole film moves at the same frantic speed, regardless of whether Bourne is diving over rooftops or Pamela is having an office conversation with Noah. The way this is achieved is by hair-trigger editing and most noticeably, purposely rough handheld camera work. The entire film is shot this way, with a shaky cam effect and periodic zoom ins used as punctuation, much the way that similar camera work is used to build tension in the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA series.
This type of camera handling has somewhat of a polarizing effect that may impress some viewers and put off others. On one hand, it definitely adds tension to every scene. On the other, it is overused to the point of becoming a gimmick and is frequently annoying as hell. Greengrass’ use of the shaky effect coupled with hyper-fast cuts during the most action-packed scenes such as a car chase or hand-to-hand skirmish pushes this type of filming to the extreme. The fact that it virtually never lets up only amplifies the overall effect of disorientation and headache-inducing motion. I thought some of the scenes in THE BOURNE SUPREMACY were obnoxious. Boy, was I naïve. ULTIMATUM goes far beyond that.
While I am definitely not a fan of the frame-by-frame direction or editing, I do fully applaud the aggressive momentum that it creates and the ambitious use of real-world locales. It cannot be easy to shoot fast-moving action sequences on busy city streets filled with foot and vehicular traffic. Greengrass and his team pull off several sequences with impressively realistic results. The car chases in particular perfectly convey the destructive impact of speeding cars falling, colliding and flipping over. The exception is Bourne’s propensity for emerging from each crumpled wreck practically unscathed.
I won’t lie. Matt Damon is not my favorite American actor and I once had reservations about him stepping into an action role of this magnitude. Yet throughout the series he has demonstrated a willingness to push himself physically and deliver the kind of serious action hero persona that has been missing since Harrison Ford handed his Jack Ryan character to Damon’s buddy Ben Affleck.
No Bourne movie is complete without a couple high-impact hand-to-hand fights and here again ULTIMATUM pushes the action to new extremes. There are two main fights. One has Damon subduing several attackers early on and the second is a one-on-one duel to the death between Bourne and a fellow operative, played by Joey Ansah. The rough and tumble choreography of SUPREMACY is taken a step further here, again with Bourne making use of any item within reach as a weapon. This time, a book and a towel are enough to get the job done.
One minor disappointment is the small role given to UNDISPUTED 2 star Scott Adkins. While I’m happy to see this talented martial arts-trained actor getting noticed by mainstream Hollywood, I wish they had cast him in a more prominent role. He’s got the looks and the moves to be the next big martial arts-fighting star but needs more exposure to get there.
For his part, relative newcomer Joey Ansah does a terrific job of portraying a cold-blooded killer who throws down with Damon. He apparently performed all his own fighting moves and stunts, and has an extensive background in ninjitsu. He previously had a small in the indie U.K. actioner LEFT FOR DEAD and choreographed the action for a U.K. TV series called STARHYKE. Hopefully, we’ll get to see more action-oriented performances from this up-and-coming British talent in the future.
It is interesting to note a certain duality within the portrayal of Bourne’s fighting ability. He’s the ultimate opportunist who is able to efficiently take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself in the blink of an eye. This makes him the lethal killing machine that he expressly despises by the end of the movie. Against a lesser foe, his movements are clean and effective. Yet against a foe of presumably equal skill, Bourne is reduced to a much more ragged and desperate level of fighting. Not being much of a real-life scrapper myself, I can’t say how authentic it is but it definitely provides a strong visual and philosophical contrast to the meticulously choreographed fighting of Hong Kong. The difference seems to come down to the origins of screen action in the West and in China. China’s screen fighting largely originates from the performing and athletic arts of Peking Opera, wushu and acrobatics whereas in the West, screen fighting originates largely from practical necessity. The BOURNE series may be the ultimate example of Western screen fighting where a martial art is involved. What ULTIMATUM celebrates is not the fighting form but the results of it and the shortest route to get there.
Aside from the excessive need to make every single scene appear on edge, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM is a very solid and satisfying action thriller that is as lean and efficient in its plot and presentation as Bourne’s fighting skill. Greengrass and Damon close out the trilogy nicely and like any enjoyable franchise that reaches its apparent end, it is a bittersweet experience. It is uncertain where the series can go from here. Ludlum only wrote three Bourne novels, not that it matters much considering how far removed the movies are. As with Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, the series baton has been picked up a new author with two new Bourne stories penned by Eric Van Lustbader. As successful as the film franchise has been, it seems unlikely that Universal will shelve it permanently for lack of its star or source material from Ludlum. Should the series be revived with a new star I can only hope they keep the fighting action and lose the monkey cam.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Jeff Imada
- kc
