Great thriller

Rating: 8/10 (23 November 2007)

One of the best thrillers ever made, it has the reflective quality of Le Carre's earlier post-war spy flicks like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and the TV dramas with George Smiley but with plenty of shoot-em-ups and car chases. The down-beat mini trashing the massed cops of Paris is so much more impressive than Bond with all his gadgetry pulling the same stunt. Great set-pieces but the best of all is the body surfing down the stair-well. Unbelievable. Matt Damon has a brooding presence which fits in well with the storyline and Franka Potente makes a sexy and believable sidekick and I'm glad they got together in the end, leaving a suitably open ending for the sequel. The story neatly turns the usual spy shtick on it's head with the bad guys as his own side. We all know now how true that is now. Should have been called, He Doesn't Know He's Bourne, but I'd go a million miles for a lousy pun.