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 Back
in the winter of 1997, a small character driven drama named Good
Will Hunting was released, and quickly became a smash hit, earning
Oscars for it's writers/stars, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Watching
that film, I'll doubt many studio executives thought they were looking
at the next big action heroes in Hollywood. But flash forward to 2002
and here they both are, starring in two of summer's biggest blockbusters.
In The Sum of All Fears,
Ben Affleck had the safety net of working within an ensemble of talented
actors. In the new thriller The Bourne Identity, Matt Damon
is all by himself, the fate of the movie resting almost entirely on
his shoulders. While the film struggles to find a genuine plot, Damon's
convincing performance combined with director Doug Liman's (Swingers,
Go) ambitious action staging makes for a consistently entertaining
ride.
Loosely based on the 1980 novel by the late Robert Ludlum, the film
opens with Damon's character being rescued from the Mediterranean
Sea by a European fishing boat. He has two gunshot wounds in his
back and a Swiss bank account number implanted under his skin. And
he can't seem to remember his own name or anything else relating
to his past.
At the Swiss bank he finds a safe deposit box in his name filled
with cash, a handgun, and several passports with his picture, but
each with a different name and nationality (of course the bank never
checks for any actual identification). Certainly these are not possessions
of the average man, and before you know it he finds himself on the
run from the police, assassins and just about everyone else. All
the while piecing together clues as to who he really is (was). On
the run, Damon's Bourne comes to realize that he bears certain unnatural
"skills," such as an advanced knowledge of martial arts, the keen
ability to find an exit route from any building and being able to
speak in multiple languages. This all comes in handy as he's pursued
from the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland to what he believes is his
former apartment in Paris. On the way he meets a young girl named
Maria, played by Run Lola Run's Franka Potente, who initially
agrees to drive him to Paris, before she too becomes a target.
At the same time, over at CIA headquarters in Virginia, we learn
that Damon's character is actually a trained covert assassin of
the government who was believed to be dead. Now discovered alive,
his handler Conklin (Chris Cooper) must bring him in, dead or alive,
or risk exposure of his own illicit exercises.
The knowledge of exactly who Bourne is from the start squashes much
of the films underlying intrigue. In fact, after we are introduced
to the film's players, there isn't very much suspense left at all.
Luckily, Liman realizes this as well and is more concerned with
filling the screen with exhilarating car chases and eye-popping
martial arts fighting. (One spectacular stunt towards the end involving
a dead body and a stairwell has to be seen to be believed.) Amidst
the continuing trend of movies to toss in surprise endings and nonsensical
twists, it's refreshing to see a meaningless action movie where
what you see is exactly what you get.
At first glance, Damon does not seem suited for playing a character
with any knowledge of martial arts, but that just makes it more
exciting the first time we see him exhibit his phenomenal skills.
Playing a man without any past is certainly a challenge where many
actors would falter. Here Damon plays on his own boyish looks and
calm persona to evoke the spirit of a man who literally becomes
another person, but not without displacing his languishing inner
demons. After Damon and Tobey Maguire have successfully become action
stars this summer, I'll bet somewhere Screech from Saved by the
Bell is calling his agent.
Franka Potente's role is basically an action movie cliché, playing
Damon's female sidekick, but to her credit she still manages to
infuse enough spirit and character to make her inevitable attraction
to Damon believable and sincere. One could question the rather convenient
forces that brought them together, but eventually they do make a
rather appealing movie couple.
The rest of the supporting cast is mostly inconsequential. Chris
Cooper seems only to be earning a paycheck as he scuffs around CIA
headquarters in frustration, randomly shouting out orders to his
anxious staff. And while Julia Stiles (Save the Last Dance)
may have jumped at the chance to broaden her resume by playing a
CIA agent in Europe, she seems quite out of place here. (One almost
expects her to break out in dance.)
For all its inherent faults, The Bourne Identity is still
an acceptably diverting way to spend two hours. It certainly won't
redefine the espionage genre, but by deftly utilizing the old-fashioned
trend of realistic action without special effects combined with
slickly paced editing and camerawork, it fulfills the only promise
it made to the audience. To entertain.
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