Technically, dramatically, and artistically flawed

Rating: 1/10 (4 July 2008)

The last chase (I hope) is playing out as I write this--- typing is more enjoyable than getting sea sick watching this meth-cam production. But reading the "hated it" comments gave me another really great comment-- the person that said "Get a tripod and some lights". That ranks as one of my favorite comments, up there with "This is what happens when your mother owns a production company" for Dungeons and Dragons and "We get it!" for Snow Falling on Cedars. Sure the camera work is abominable--I would have had to leave the theater if this was on a large screen. The best video commentary is Milos Forman on Amadeus-- you can see his concern in making the story clear-- he worried that viewers would not understand the character walking thought the snow-- yes-- movies must be clear. Hitchcock knew to never hide stuff from the audience and that is all that passes for plot in this movie. People running to bad camera work and muddled storytelling do not make a great film-- it makes pretentious crap. As a technical worker I am also appalled by all the improbabilities-- his hands bleeding in one scene and Palmolive-smooth from then on. The way the phones and gizmos work was also pretty fanciful. I would like to think that the women that put all the secret documents into the FAX machine had them upside down-- all that got sent was the blank backs of the documents. And we all know about Hitchcock's McGuffin, but would the bad guys really keep every single incriminating thing in a handy set of files? After hanging around the mob and biker gangs I assure you that nobody, I mean nobody, acts the way these people do. Monologuing- they made fun of it in the Incredibles, I mean how can you have yet another boring chase if Jason Bourne does not call the antagonist and tell him he is in his office? Why not just run around downrange at the drunken redneck shooting academy? That is suspenseful too. And every time someone really has the jump on Jason, they go all squishy-- the girl in Tangier's, the women lead, and most unbelievably, the hit-man at the end. Yeah, the mob hit-men I knew always stopped and questioned their role in the universe when their mark made a sagacious comment. Oh, and Jason always tries to save the bad people's life, in real life he would kill everyone he comes across including the janitors, the children, and 20 or 30 other innocent people. The real pathos is that our country really does have a special rendition program that this movie could have exposed but it was so caught up in fantasy, derivative, make-believe behaviors and situations it could not comment on the grim reality all of us face as a formerly free peoples.