The Long and Winding Road Home

Rating: 9/10 (12 August 2007)

The third movie in the series of the CIA amnesiac super agent, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is as dynamic, fast-moving, filled with the first class chase sequences, and never-stopping tension as the first two movies. All three movies make a very exiting trilogy and also manage to tell something very important on the subject of the honorable goals that not always justify the means. This time, Jason Bourne is set to find out how, when, and where it all started for him. He wants to remember all, he wants to know what the flashbacks that keep coming back mean and by doing so, he once again becomes a danger to CIA. The agency made him a part of a special top-secret program "Blackbriar" which had created a perfect killing machine, a super assassin out of him. Now, he presents an imminent danger for CIA's director Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn) who had approved the program and for Noah Vosen (David Strathairn, excellent as usual), the chief of department's division of top secret operations. Vosen does not hate Bourne personally. He knows that Bourne is as a treat for the agency and has to be eliminated and he would use all possible high-tech devices and techniques as well as ruthless manipulation to trace him see him dead. Bourne also has allies inside CIA, Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) and Nicky Parsons (grown up Julia Stiles has just a few words in the script but the close ups of her face that changed emotions and feelings so vividly made her character compelling and memorable.)
A lot has been said about Paul Greengrass's ("United 93," "Bourne Supremacy") directing and his use of fast cuts and an unsteady camera. I found his approach competent, appropriate and fully justified. In the film packed with suspense and thrills, at least two chase scenes are perfect and breathtaking. The long scene in London Waterloo station where Bourne tries to make a contact with a reporter for The Guardian, Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) is a masterwork. Bourne knows that Ross has been watched by the CIA high-tech specialists in NYC office and has been followed by the operatives at the station while an excellent sniper is waiting somewhere for a signal to terminate the reporter. Bourne controls the situation by trying to get the information from Ross and to protect him. Another scene takes place in Tangier as Bourne attempts to talk to a man from his flashbacks who has knowledge of his past before he ever became Jason Bourne. Bringing the action to Tangier, reminds me the old movie "Pepe Le Moko" (1937) directed by Julien Duvivier where the main character stuck forever in the suffocating maze of narrow streets of Tangier. It also made me think that Bourne movies are not just high adrenalin thrillers/mystery/spy flicks but they are first of all about longing for home, the quest for returning to the roots, searching for and understanding one's real identity and as such they are more interesting, deeper, and poignant than just a well done action flick. Maybe the movies would not have made me think so had another actor played Jason Bourne. Matt Damon, the actor with a lot of charisma and high intelligence is perfect for a role of a thinking superman that wants to know who and what is behind his super abilities.