tedious and fragmented

Rating: 3/10 (10 August 2008)

Beware of flashbacks! It's a rare film that bounces around in time without losing its audience. Not only did I lose my way, but I lost interest. Matt Damon's character was too self-contained to care about, and it simply went on being fragmented and confusing for far too long.
As with many films about spying, this one tried so hard to impress us with the complexities of being a spook that I was mostly just baffled by the twists and turns. I kept asking myself a lot of questions like "Now who's THAT?" and "Why's he doing that NOW?"
It's possible I'm just too stupid to understand, but I suspect that it's like a mystery novel, in which there's a tempting notion that you can somehow deduce who the murderer is from clues in the story, but in fact you really can't until key facts are revealed at the end. I'm a bit skeptical that any viewer without specialized knowledge could ever really follow this film.
I had the same problems with Syriana, but at least it lacked the flashbacks.