The Bourne Identity. A film in two parts

Rating: 4/10 (16 July 2008)

A man is dragged on board a fishing boat unconscious, shot and in pretty bad shape, however, through luck or God, he winds up in a French hospital with no recollection of who he is, however, what he does know is that his name appears to be Jason Bourne, however, the more he starts digging the more names he finds, the more under threat he is, the more he is able to lash out at a moments notice, blocking his opponents with the perfect amount of force. This is a man who is literally a walking weapon. Eventually he stumbles upon the beautiful Marie, who decides to help him feeling that maybe their is something more to Bourne than meets the eye.
The film is very VERY loosely based on the immense thriller by Robert Ludlum, and when I have been going through the reviews one thing stands out, and that is a large amount of people who rate the book do not rate the film and there are good reasons for this, for it isn't just about things that don't transfer well. There is great stuff in the Bourne Identity, key issues that relate directly to the title that are just ignored that make the rest of the film utterly pointless, the identity that he thinks he has is not necessarily what it actually is. In the book this is dealt with in a fantastic way that, if done correctly on film would have had the audience on the edge of their seat. Not touched on here.
However, the other big problem with the film and one that I can't quite believe that no-0ne else has a problem with is that the climactic end when we supposedly find out what has happened and who Bourne is transpires that the despot that Bourne was sent to kill, he didn't because their was a kid there. So, this person we were routing for pussied out, and we're supposed yo like him? I didn't. This could be a Robert Mugabe type or a Pol Pot type of despot who would no doubt be grooming his children for future atrocities, how many other children were going to be killed because he had not carried out the assignment? This was not some shadow identity that was fiction this was supposedly the person that we were routing for? Or, to put it differently, if the only chance you had to go back in time and kill Hitler was whilst he was playing with some children at his lair in the mountains, would you do it? I think most of us know what the answer would be.
The film itself is at its best when it is using or reflecting aspects of the book, which it does a lot of in the first half, and at its worse when it ignores them, as in the second half of the film. The car chase which other's have wrote is great is not the special and does not match the sequences in the superb "Taxi" series of films, or even the more recent "Vantage Point". The main issue that people have with this film and I suspect the main reason why it scores so highly is that it seems edgy compared to a Bond who is usually super cool, BUT, simply the virtue of being different does not necessarily a good film make.
For those who read and not just on a computer, get the book. It makes the film seem about as edgy as a rotting cucumber. Nuff said.