Action/Suspense minus the suspense

Rating: 3/10 (23 March 2003)

I read Robert Ludlum's obit in the Economist and so had to read one of his books. I picked the Bourne Identity. The Economist was right: Ludlum was an awful writer who did brilliant plotting. You stay up to three a.m. to get to the last page.
The Bourne Identity uses a sure-fire hook: a man fished out of the sea with a load of bullets in his carcass, minor brain damage, and no memory. There are only a few clues to whom he might be--a numbered Swiss bank account, heavy-duty martial skills, espionage instincts, etc.
And he's got nothing. No money, no ID, nothing. And excellent reasons to believe someone stills wants him dead. And he suffers terrible migraines. And flashbacks. Did I mention flashbacks? So right away, you're pulling for him. He re-enters the world, living by his wits.
Crucially, you are a long way into the book before the truth starts to emerge. But even then, it is murky. The CIA, the Vietnam war, international terrorism, etc. Clearly, he was involved in something big and nasty.
Not so with this movie. Almost immediately, you see the US government connection. Good-bye suspense.
And good-bye human interest. In the book, Jason is tortured ad nauseam--as is the reader by Ludlum's prose--by the question of just what kind of person he really is. It's barely there in the movie. The same for character depth. You really don't end up caring much about Jason, Marie, anybody.

In the book, Marie is forced to join him, against her will. With time, she becomes his ally, adding her own valuable skills and knowledge to help Jason survive and triumph. In the movie, Marie is merely this lost, clueless "gypsy".
I don't know anything about the director, but can't help getting the impression that he came up doing rock videos and TV commercials. The camera work is very edgy. It is meant to look hip. And now they let him do a real movie. Bad decision.
The action stuff is very good. All the chases and fights.
The actors were quite good. Matt Damon is wasted in something like this.