The Adventures of Government Agencies That Go Unchecked

Rating: 8/10 (2 September 2007)

In 2007, one expects nearly every big-budget American film to be less than impressive. I saw The Bourne Ultimatum and was thrilled the way action movies don't always thrill anymore. It thrilled me because there is definite mind paid to the film-making and screen writing. The action sequences are not a commotion of loudness, fast cutting, and violent movement. They are masterpieces of that good old friend suspense and inimitable tension. Take the sequence at Waterloo Station for instance. In a crowded place, there is Jason Bourne, played by Matt Damon with a riveting assertion of each of the major elements of his character from his lack of memory mixing with vengeful aggression towards those responsible to the rigid and infinite training he must've completed in order to be realistically near superhuman. In this place compressed with endless streams of people, he must perfectly guide a person by phone so as to evade top-notch surveillance by the CIA's leading forces while beating up or killing guys following that person, all without drawing the attention of the overwhelming crowd in the terminal. That's a suspense sequence. Sir Alfred Hitchcock is turning to his side and fluffing his pillow in mid-dream in his grave.
There is a fight scene in this film between Bourne and a rotten-to-the-core assassin in a crumbly apartment that is so intense that one feels as if they are involved in the fight first hand. That is what the ideal fight sequence is supposed to do. You are supposed to love the good guy, boiling with anger at each hit he suffers, and absolutely relish every hit suffered by the bad guy. Shot in such a way that sustains a rhythm of speedboat rate, and also one of those rare action sequences where dramatic acting comes into play even amidst the ultrajittery camera-work and editing, create this beautiful effect that other action films, especially the shallow ones that only serve as cash registers, wish they had.
A peeve of mine, while we're on the subject of flimsy Hollywood blow-em-ups that serve as one of the many reasons why the rest of the world laughs at us, is the constant use in many of those films of musical score that is orchestral yet lathered in techno beats and sounds. I really cannot stand that kind of score. The Bourne Ultimatum is one Hollywood action film that does what I never thought one would do again, which is underscore with great orchestral music. Making film score fast and suspenseful can be done with an orchestra, you know. In fact, I don't think technologically synthesized music is very engaging at all. The Bourne Ultimatum knows this. Just thought I'd add that.
Director Paul Greengrass uses cinematography throughout the film that, though it is glaringly dizzying still has a subliminal effect on the audience, leaking a paranoid, nervous feeling into each scene, and we thus know, by the excessive conspicuousness of it, that we are being manipulated, putting us in Bourne's position, fueling us with a riveted clenching of our hands to the arms of our seats, bruising the forearms of our dates and mothers. Not to mention that the scenes in New York City are some of the very very best I've seen in any recent film. Winter in New York, giving the climax of the film such unexpectedly affecting urban twilight atmosphere.
The tight, very professionally structured script is engaging in its use of the mysterious operation Black Briar, a truly effective title for a truly evil-sounding operation, the contents of which I cannot disclose without spoiling anything, contents that are pretty topical around the edges right now for America. Let's keep making movies like this with indirect affronts to unconstitutional goings-on, giving the characters involved the same wryly indiscriminate portrayal as David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, and Albert Finney do here.
This was a pleasant surprise. Save for the silly, very needless and obvious final shot, this is a genuine showcase of the stuff real action adventure thrillers are made of.