What a spy thriller should be

Rating: 9/10 (24 November 2008)

This film is exciting from the start where a man who has lost his memory is pulled from the Mediterranean until the end where he confronts his erstwhile employers.
Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne, an assassin with amnesia who must piece together who he is from the contents of a safety deposit box in a Swiss bank. Unfortunately for him he is spotted and his CIA bosses assume something is wrong with him and attempt to arrest him when he visits the US consulate. He escapes and pays a German girl (Franka Potente) to drive him to Paris. They realise just how much danger they are in when an assassin attacks them in Bourne's apartment. From then on he must play cat and mouse with the CIA and the French police until he can finally identify and confront his former employers at the end.
The acting is solid throughout, both from the two main characters and from secondary characters, especially Clive Owen in a small roll as another assassin sent after Borne. It is also nice to have a leading lady who, while pretty, isn't an exotic, unrealistic beauty like we tend to get in another spy franchise. The action never really lets up, we have plenty of fights and an exciting car chase where Bourne must evade the Paris Police while driving a clapped out old Mini. If you enjoy spy thrillers I'd certainly recommend this as well as the other two films in the trilogy. It is good to see that a really exciting film doesn't need to resort the excessive swearing or violence which would have taken it above the 12 certificate.