The story starts in 1980, when author Robert Ludlum published the first in a series of spy novels featuring the titular Jason Bourne. It was quickly adapted into a two-part television event with Richard Chamberlain as our hero and Charlie’s Angels star Jaclyn Smith as the story’s love interest. It was a modest, well-made production that is itself a fun watch if you can find it.
In 2002, as James Bond remained the pinnacle of the genre, going more and more outlandish as time passed, it was director Doug Liman who took the helm of a new big screen take on the story, casting young Matt Damon in the lead, hoping to offer something a bit more grounded … and action-y. It worked, the movie became a box office hit and the kickstarter for a number of sequels. Take that Bond. It’s The Bourne Identity.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: It opens on rough seas. Fishermen in the Mediterranean discover a floating unconscious man with a couple of bullets in his back. Not the usual catch of the day. The man eventually awakens not knowing who he is but somehow fluent in a number of languages and highly skilled in the arts of combat and self-defense. They further find a capsule buried under his skin that offers a curious clue, the number of a safe deposit box in Zurich. Recovered, the nameless mane makes his way to the bank and learns he is owner to a number of passports and stacks of various international currency. Befuddled, he takes the name on the American passport and heads out to find himself. He’s Jason Bourne on the loose. Trouble is close behind.
With some digging, he realizes he’s a secret operative for a covert CIA program, one that isn’t interested in being exposed. Bourne had gone rogue after a botched mission and can expose the operation, so he becomes a target with others sent to do him in at any cost. Not your average day in the office. Meanwhile, he meets a young woman named Marie (Franka Potente), who gives him a chance to travel anonymously, but she’s soon caught in the collapsing snare, and the two must fight to not only stay alive, but get the truth about who he is and why he’s being hunted. Where will it take him?
REVIEW: The Bourne Identity arrived right on time I suppose, a fast-paced action thriller in the wake of 9-11 that left action movie hyperbole in the dust and brought a new breed of hero (one that would help re-shape Bond himself in the years following) to audiences looking for something less spectacle-driven and more authentic. This is where the film succeeds the most, with Damon well-cast in giving Bourne some humanity while perfectly convincing as a man stuffed with special training. While the generic amnesiac trope is worn way thin in entertainment, there is a plausibility to its use here and allows us to feel a part of the discovery as Jason learns what it’s all about, cloak, dagger and all.
While a film like this needs its action, it is the story that ultimately keeps this satisfying, with the relationship between Jason and Marie always feeling genuine and the conflicts they face purposeful. Liman balances these shifts very well, and while the film itself doesn’t have deeper meaning or anything to say about the situations it invents, it doesn’t really need to, instead offering up a heaping handful of exciting in-your-face setpieces and some emotional up and downs that make this a fun watch.
THAT MOMENT IN: Let’s jump to about an hour into the story and set this up. Bourne is flying blind but he’s not without some unique abilities that have him questioning just about everything. At the American consulate he gets chased to the roof and then out on the streets where he meets Marie, who, after he offers her money she needs, gives him a ride. Still unaware of who he is, or at least what it means to be him, the two set off to an address in Paris he found in the safe deposit box. Could this be a safe house?
Nope. Once there, they find a little reprieve, but … it’s fleeting. A deadly assassin awaits and soon Bourne’s got to put his fighting skills to the test – with the help of a ballpoint pen – and quickly discovers that he’s rather adept at smashing faces. Scratch one deadly assassin. Problem is, now he’s got Marie in danger as well. The two find that they’re already being hunted. Police are closing in as well. Not long after, we’re in a car chase and our favorite moment in the movie.
Now I know, a car chase seems like a lazy thing to pick as a great moment but let’s consider what this is in context to the story, and best of all, how it ends. It starts with the two sitting in the little red Austin Mini Cooper outside the Paris train station, Bourne pleading with her to go to the police and hope she can explain her situation. He’s convinced he can’t keep her safe. However, she’s terrified because of what she’s seen already, and not just from what Jason can do, but how quickly authorities have traced her to him. How is it possible?
Bourne tells her he wants to do the the right thing, but Marie has the perfect retort: “Nobody does the right thing.” I love this line and her delivery, the way it really encapsulates the story itself and how even when trying to do good, there are always consequences. He suspects she might actually leave. And then she looks him in the eye and tells him to “Figure this out,” implying that she is in this with him. Awesome.
Right then, outside the car, Bourne notices that a guard from the train station is approaching their parked car. Hoping not to panic Marie, he casually asks if she’s taken care of her car. Tires okay? Pulls a little to the right, she replies. Meanwhile, a cop car comes up behind them. Bourne unfolds a small map and gives it a glance, his mind finding and mentally recording possible routes. Another cop car pulls up and Jason gives one more look to Marie. He’s deadly serious. “Last chance,” he says. Her reply? She buckles up. Hot damn. Here we go.
Bourne throws the car in gear and bursts out of the parking space, skidding in front of a city bus, the cops now in pursuit. As the soundtrack kicks up with Paul Oakenfold’s Ready Steady Go, Jason and Marie fly through traffic, leading police through the streets of Paris in a do or die chase. With cars and motorcycles after him, Bourne goes off road, remembering his route, and takes to sidewalks, and even a massive flight of stairs that he call, “a bump coming up.”
On and on they go, Bourne putting on an impressive display of driving skills as a growing fleet of police trail behind. This leaves a swath of wrecked cars and overturned motorcycle cops while Jason weaves through oncoming traffic. It’s basically carnage in the streets. And a lot of personal vehicle insurance claims.
He eventually loses all but one, a persistent guy on a motorcycle who looks like he’s about to stop them, who makes a crucial timing error and ends up flipping over the hood of a car desparte to get out of the way. Fail.
Free of pursuers, Bourne cuts his way to an underground parking lot and skids to a stop in the shadows, and here’s where the moment earns its wings, so to speak. But first, I want you to think again about James Bond – as I mentioned at the start of all this – and how this scene might be played out after a lengthy chase scene (like this) in one of his movies. You’ve probably already got pictured in your mind, where Bond, cocky and confident of his performance, stops the battered car, turns to the frazzled double entendre-named beauty beside him and says something snarky like, “Traffic’s hell in Paris, dear” or “Care for another ride?” Wink-wink.
But this is not Bond. The Bourne Identity does something rather surprising, avoiding the genre trope and instead taking an actual breather. For twenty full seconds, in fact. Both Jason and Marie say nothing, simply sitting in silence catching their breath, collectively trying to process everything that just happened. Their faces glisten with perspiration, and Jason appears genuinely shaken. There is a palpable sense that these two just experienced something truly traumatizing and that them being simply alive at all is something to consider. That’s very cool.
There are a number of good moments in this movie, including a terrific bit of cat and mouse with Bourne and another assassin (Clive Owen) late in the story, and I don’t want to take away from some smart choice by Liman throughout that keep this hitting all the right beats right to the end. However, each time I watch this movie, it is this small pause of sorts after a breathless chase that always strikes me as an absolutely perfect movie moment, saying nothing while effectively shouting out that this series is going to do nothing unexpected.
HEADING FOR THE CREDITS: Even if you’re no fan of spy movies and action spectacles, there is a lot about this first entry in the Bourne franchise that should appeal. A grounded, greatly identifiable turn from Damon matched by a deeply believable performance from Potente helps this a lot in making it more than the genre demands. Also, if you’ve got the means (or can search YouTube), be sure to watch the alternate ending, which I think is far more effective than the theatrical release. Just saying.