Breathless, Suspenseful Action Really Shows Greengrass' Mastery of this Genre

Rating: 8/10 (27 August 2007)

As director Paul Greengrass proved with United 93 last year, he has an uncanny ability to tap into something viscerally powerful with his films. His extensive background in documentary film-making really comes to the fore when it comes to the ultra-lean storytelling, propulsive pacing and superbly rendered action sequences in this genuinely suspenseful 2007 film. Densely conceived plot turns are swift and sometimes contrived enough for eye-rolling, but Greengrass knows how to keep a viewer enraptured with his pure cinematic technique. As the third and presumably final entry in the Bourne series, which update Robert Ludlum's nail-biting novels from post-Vietnam War to the far more ambiguous post-9/11 era, this one picks up immediately where 2004's The Bourne Supremacy left off with CIA assassin Jason Bourne still struggling to recollect his past as he dismantles conspiracies emanating from the senior operatives within the agency.
Bourne has become the CIA's most-wanted. Regardless, despite a number of cunning assassins on his trail, he is intent on finding out who he is amid muddled flashbacks of mysterious interrogations. He gets help from fellow CIA agent Nicky Parsons, his former Paris contact, in Madrid where they end up in a diabolical chase through the alleys and rooftops of Tangiers. Both returning from Supremacy, Christopher Rouse's kinetic editing and Oliver Wood's hand-held camera-work make a powerful impact on this scene by making the action feel compellingly claustrophobic. The action all works toward a head-turning series of twists that bring Bourne closer to his real identity. The elaborately constructed screenplay is credited to three writers - Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi - who know how to play off our own paranoia about security and U.S. intelligence. Playwright Tom Stoppard apparently also had a hand in the final script. A sharp, Grade-A cast has been assembled, though this movie is obviously not an actor's showcase. Matt Damon returns as Bourne, all cool physicality with enough non-ironic humanity to allow us a rooting interest in his fate.
Bringing her natural authority to the role, Joan Allen also makes an effortless return as Deputy CIS Director Pamela Landy. Her philosophical adversary at the agency is the Machiavellian CIA official Noah Vosen played with surprising relish by the usually low-key David Straithairn. Paddy Considine makes the most of his few scenes as the understandably confused Ross, while an avuncular Albert Finney shows up late in the film with menacing subtlety as the key to Bourne's memory. The one weak link continues to be Julia Stiles, who maintains her poker-faced petulance as Parsons from the previous films and remains only marginally interesting as Bourne's female foil by default in this go-around. However, it's really Greengrass' craftsmanship that shines brightest here. A perfect example can be seen in the extended breathtaking chase sequence with a British journalist Simon Ross being tracked through London's particularly busy Waterloo Station for a planned rendezvous with Bourne. If there is one drawback to the third film, it is the presumption of some understanding of what happened in the first two installments. It just makes some of the set-up a little harder to follow. Otherwise, this is bracing, often enthralling entertainment for anyone who loves this genre of cinema.