Goodo

Rating: 8/10 (26 June 2006)

The Bourne Identity took the viewer on an often violent, highly entertaining and delightfully intriguing romp through Europe. The Bourne Supremacy employs much the same tactics but with a larger scope, both geographically and narratorially.
We pick up Bourne's trail in GoaIndia, track him through Europe and then finally follow our hit-man into Russia and the post-Soviet mess of Moscow for the tradition final show down between good and evil. This binary conflagration, of course, occurs inside Bourne's rather mangled mind as well as in the East West paradigm that still lingers in these types of movies. Perhaps, in an allegorical sense, that's what makes the film interesting. Bourne's uncertainty about his identity (an amnesiac former hit-man for the CIA trying to come to terms with who he was and who he is). Going on a killing rampage on the way to making an apology to an innocent victim of his rampant violence seems, in the end, a pretty good option as it is what he is constructed to be - simply it's what he is good at, what he's trained for - just as the confused American Government (here's the allegory) feels it necessary to attack whatever moves in the post-Cold War environment (Islam being the new Red of course). However, the lesson here is that one can put the gun back in the trench coat pocket and walk towards the light (standing amongst the detritus of the final conflict, JB looks back where he has come from, a mess of piled up cars and smoke and chooses to exit the tunnel where it is brimming with light).
Hmmm, maybe asking a bit much of the film here. But the flick seems desperately to want to make a comment about East West intrigue in an age where the very notion of such a conflict is essentially dead. Hence, it posits - What do you do when your enemies become your friends?
The complex patchwork of visuals and plot somehow seems to allow for the film to explore this type question without it becoming bogged down in its own special effects bonanza. Its a fun little film that manages, and this is remarkable for a sequel, to continue and improve on the original idea without killing itself. However, if indeed it really is asking this kind of question, why doesn't our protagonist shoot himself in the knowledge that he cannot change?