The Bourne Identity

Rating: 8/10 (8 July 2005)

I have always been a fan of action films, and this is a very sophisticated one from director Doug Liman. Basically, on a stormy night a young man (Matt Damon) is pulled out of the Mediterranean Sea by a fishing boat crew, and a curious fisherman pulls out two bullets and miniature laser, with a Swiss bank account number, from his back. The young man is now wanting to know who he is, going to this bank account in Zurich, he finds his identification as Jason Bourne, but also underneath the cover he finds more passports with fake names, money, and a gun! He is now following all the clues he has, and with the help of to-be love interest Marie Helena Kreutz (Creep's Franka Potente), they are trying to find out exactly what he did before losing his memory, and escaping the attack of the unknown agency assassins. Obviously we - the audience - know that bad guys, led by Alexander Conklin (Chris Cooper), with help from Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) are an organisation called Treadstone, a secret agency specialising in secret agents. Jason in the end finds out he was one of these agents, with the "fateful" mission being to kill politician Wombosi (Lost's Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), before he and Marie go into hiding. Also starring The Professor (Clive Owen), Gabriel Mann as Zorn and Julia Stiles as Nicolette. The acting, especially from Damon is great, the song "Extreme Ways" by Moby is cool, the action and chase sequences are exhilarating, it is just an intelligent and energetic film. Very good!