Pretty bland for a thriller

Rating: 5/10 (21 January 2007)

This was a pretty dull and overly long action/thriller.2 hours of Matt Damon is just a bit much, after all the guy isn't exactly Jack Nicholson when it comes to acting ability.
Damon is pulled aboard a fishing vessel with two bullets in him and no memory of his past.A metal cylinder found on him leads him to a Swiss bank to a lock box that has all sorts of alternate IDs for him and money and a gun.Then,for reasons he doesn't understand people start trying to kill him.He must survive these attempts and battle his way all over Europe to try and uncover what is going on.
The action parts are pretty good but they are just too far apart and in between them are boring segments of him looking at maps and talking on the phone and driving and all sorts of dull stuff.Then its 30 seconds of action and then back to the maps or cell phone.
Now how he could wake up and not know who he was but remember all sorts of fighting skills and martial arts and expert weapon use was a little cloudy.And one glaring mistake that this supposed super agent Damon made involved a red canvas bag.After he empties out his Swiss lock box he dumps all the stuff in it in a red canvas bag.Soon after he is spotted and chased and one of his pursuers goes as far as to yell "You with the red bag,STOP!" So then what does Damon's character do? He continues to carry this bright red canvas with him through most of the rest of the movie all across Europe.Duh! And then I never quite figured out how he was able to roam all across Europe and get through and across borders so easily without being nabbed with everyone looking for him.
Anyway I'm not a big fan of this kind of movie.We've seen this spy thriller secret agent stuff done to death.And Matt Damon was a lackluster choice to play the lead.He had pretty much the same expression on his face the whole movie,whether killing or making love.
All in all this 2 hour movie would have been much better to cut out some of the slow parts and keep about 90 minutes worth.
Of course that still doesn't solve the problem of having a dull actor in the lead.