Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Paul Greengrass
Cast :
Matt Damon……….Jason Bourne
Julia Stiles……….Nicky Parsons
David Strathairn……….Noah Vosen
Scott Glenn……….Ezra Kramer
Paddy Considine……….Simon Ross
Edgar Ramirez……….Paz
Albert Finney……….Dr. Albert Hirsch
Joan Allen……….Pamela Landy
With the evolution of Matt Damon has come a Bourne film that has seemingly marked his development as an actor in both ability and stature, and it seems only fitting that The Bourne Ultimatum is the sort of vehicle a veteran star nearing the peak of his game has Damon returning to the shoes of the amnesiac spy Jason Bourne. While it may not be the best film in the series, it�s a fitting way for the franchise to end if this is indeed the last we�ve seen of Bourne.
This time around Bourne (Damon) is in hiding when Simon Ross (Paddy Considine), a reporter for a British newspaper, brings him out into the open inadvertently. Breaking a story on the CIA�s black ops program in Europe, and naming Bourne as the person in which Treadstone and its successor program Operation Blackbriar based their methodology on; Bourne leaves the safety of Russia and goes on a traveling tour of Europe and northern Africa in search of his identity. Finding that his answers all lead back to America, Bourne comes back to the country of his birth searching for the answers. And in a year where action movies have been relatively disappointing, The Bourne Ultimatum is a whiff of fresh air in an otherwise stale summer season.
For Damon its familiar territory, as Bourne has always been a character he�s terrific with, but the third time around isn�t the same old performance from him. It�s nothing that will get him an end of the year award, obviously, but he�s developed the character over the film series on a number of levels. Bourne may have been a bit two dimensional in the first film, but Damon has fleshed the character out over the film span. Bourne is a good man who knows how to do plenty of bad things in order to succeed; Damon gives us enough to continue to root for a guy who is quite vicious on occasion. The film series in a way shows how Damon has grown as an actor. He�s gone from an actor on the verge of becoming a megastar to being a megastar doing the sort of films his status accommodates him to being able to pick and choose the sorts of projects he wants to be able to do. It�s no shock that he�s been able to land in consistently good movies and take bigger parts in ensemble pictures since The Bourne Identity; in the last year he was a major reason why The Departed was 2006�s best film and The Good Shepherd was one of its best as well. The Bourne Ultimatum is the sort of top-notch action thriller he should be in and that he does excessively well.
The film�s script also lends itself to developing the character as well. This is perhaps the best script of the three Ludlum penned books featuring Bourne; Greengrass pulls out some nifty plot tricks to keep the film interesting and keep the high level of tension in the cinematic atmosphere. The film takes place immediately after the events of The Bourne Supremacy timeline was and features the concluding scene of the second film (Bourne�s arrival into the U.S) as a pivotal event. It gives it a differing context than the one it has initially; it�s a nice nod to continuity on the one hand and it adds a new subtext to the final conversation of the second film on the other.
The Bourne Ultimatum also features most of the same cast from the first two films as well. Joan Allen and Julia Styles return with somewhat meatier parts than before; Allen�s Pamela Landy is less of an antagonist and more of Bourne�s ally this time around as is Nicky Parsons (Styles), the only character besides Bourne to have been in all three films. Both prove more than adequate with the time they�re provided, as Allen chews scenery on a fairly regular basis. She upstages David Strathairn for large potions of their shared scenery; Allen seems to be having a ball as Landy, taking time away from her usual dramatic roles to take on role in a spy thriller.
The one unpleasant holdover from The Bourne Supremacy is Greengrass�s use of the �shaky� camera effect in nearly every action sequence. While it doesn�t ruin the film, like it has for some, it can be annoying at times that whenever something starts to get good the film just starts shaking uncontrollably. It adds a certain element of risk to the sequences on occasion, especially early on when Bourne is trying to contact Ross at a local mall while under surveillance from the CIA, but its repeated use takes away from certain moments as well. The action is top notch and done excellently, as Damon seems much more comfortable with the physical aspect of the character than he has in the past.
In a year where thrillers have been the best thing in cinemas, The Bourne Ultimatum is an excellent film that deserves mention when it comes to the best films of the year so far.
FINAL RATING (ON A SCALE OF 1-5 BUCKETS):
