‘The Bourne Ultimatum’

There are few breathers in this movie, which is non-stop action virtually from start to finish.

By: Bob Brown

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Matt Damon and Joan Allen star in The Bourne Ultimatum.


   This is the third and final episode in the Bourne series, based loosely on a Robert Ludlum novel. At least it closes in on the nagging question posed in the first two: Who is Jason Bourne and why is everyone trying to kill him? There’s some room to believe the story has more chapters to come, but that’s a marketing question.
   Even if you haven’t been following its predecessors, you can still pick up the thread pretty quickly, since the dialogue is short and the action is long. In fact, being a little confused as to who’s who and what’s what may even be an advantage, since Bourne himself is in the dark. He has all these super evasive moves and martial arts skills, but no idea who he really is or why he’s being hunted down.
   From the look of things, everyone is pointing a weapon at everyone else, trying to kill or avoid being killed. The only ones who seem to trust each other are Jason (Matt Damon, as usual) and Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles, again), who works as an assistant in the office of a CIA covert operative in Madrid. Still, Bourne isn’t even sure why Nicky is trying to help him avoid pursuers either.
   What we do know is that Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), who directs a deep cover CIA operation from Manhattan offices, thinks Bourne is a threat to national security and must be stopped. Vosen’s nemesis is another CIA operative, Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), who has a track record of her own. Vosen and Landy are thrown together by CIA director Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn), who has an ulterior motive. But the two do not play nice with each other and wind up on different sides of the operation.
   Although the CIA has cameras and listening devices virtually everywhere. Bourne is always one step ahead of them and one device removed from the surveillance. There are few breathers in this movie, which is non-stop action virtually from start to finish. So it’s appropriate that everything is off balance. Action shifts from city to city, continent to continent. It’s a virtual Baedekers of espionage, as Bourne and his pursuers globe-trot through Moscow, London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Tangiers, and finally Manhattan. Many automobiles, motorbikes and SUVs were smashed and trashed in the name of thrills. It’s a minor miracle that the producers were cleared to crumple fenders in so many beautiful, ancient downtowns.
   Camera work by cinematographer Oliver Wood, a Bourne regular, is hand-held, jumpy, and in the contemporary action-news style. Editing wrings every punch out of a fight and every crunch in a collision. In fact, it’s eerie how closely their method here matches that of their Oscar-nominated work in United 93 (2006). Vosen’s command post with assistants monitoring the action from computer terminals is a parallel to the flight and air traffic control rooms, alternating with frantic actions by passengers on flight 93.
   Until now, the classic film car chase through Manhattan was Gene Hackman’s in The French Connection. Magnify that several fold for Bourne in this movie. The minimal dialog just serves to thread these chase scenes together. There’s some talk about Bourne being more complex than James Bond, but the character doesn’t require much psychological depth. It does require muscles, however, and Matt Damon is fit. The role demands a lot of physicality. Strathairn, Allen and Stiles are fine in their roles. What matters, though, is how believable and gripping the action is.
   And it certainly gives moviegoers their money’s worth. This may be the hottest action film of the summer.
Rated PG-13 for violence and intense sequences of action.