Good non-stop action trumps Bourne's moral turpitude

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2009)

When you strip 'The Bourne Supremacy" down to its bare essentials, basically what you have is a high-powered, well-done chase movie. For the most part, it's non-stop actionand the producers were smart to enlist Paul Greenglass as the director. Greenglass films 'Supremacy' in a documentary style, making use of hand-held camera shots in many scenes. One of my favorite scenes where you really feel the events actually could have happened is when Bourne kills a fellow CIA agent in Munich and then blows up the house where the killing took place. Not only are the sequence of events leading up to the explosion choreographed masterfully(the fight scene, the lighting of the fuse, etc.) but the aftermath is equally effectiveas Bourne drives away, the police are heading in the opposite direction toward the burning house which we glimpse in the distance.
The plot to 'Supremacy' is more convoluted than complicated. In a nutshell, a rogue CIA agent conspires with Russian criminal elements to frame Bourne for two recent murders (also involving CIA agents). After a failed assassination attempt in India, Bourne escapes and is pursued by both the CIA and the Russians. Since he has amnesia, he's trying to figure out who's hunting him and why. Bourne eventually discovers he was part of a secret project called 'Treadstone' and was involved in the murder of a well-known Russian politician and his wife. The politician was set to expose the collusion between the rogue CIA agent (Abbott, convincingly played by Brian Cox) and the Russians.
Matt Damon who plays Bourne, has very little dialogue in this movie. Damon usually gives capable performances but with little nuance. Nonetheless, the part calls for a great deal of physical action and Damon is up to the job. This is what he's good atplaying parts that require someone who's in great physical shape. What doesn't ring true is that Bourne is too much of a supermana killing machine that basically no one can stop.
The supporting players here are equally as good. There's a lot of nice conflict between Brian Cox's Abbott who seeks to stymie Joan Allen's Pamela Landy, the CIA deputy administrator from discovering that's he's the rogue agent responsible for all the trouble. The Russian assassin and his boss are equally realistic as menacing villains.
'The Bourne Supremacy' was filmed on location in many different countries including India, Italy, Germany and Russia. This gives the film a great deal of its verisimilitude.
'Supremacy' wears out its welcome in the final scenes. There's a car-chase sequence that's been done many times before and goes on for too long. And there's an additional scene tacked on at the end where Bourne visits the teenage daughter of the Russian politician where he reveals that he was actually responsible for murdering her parents. Whether Bourne was brainwashed at the time or whether he knew exactly what he was doing, the writers succeed in undermining Bourne's heroic status and we're left with a sour taste in our mouths after realizing Bourne really isn't such a good guy after all.
Forget about Supremacy's thin plot and the Bourne character's moral turpitude. If you like non-stop action, The Bourne Supremacy is worth seeing.