Matt Damon plays secret CIA operative Jason Bourne who stuggles against amnesia while trying to discover his former identity in this tense action packed movie based on the novel by Robert Ludlum. Ben Johnson is drawn in to the film's twisted tale of violence and espionage which puts anything James Bond can do to shame.
Distributor: Universal Pictures UK Format: Region 2, PAL Length: 113 min. Aspect Ratio: Widescreen 2.35:1 Audio: English, Dutch, French, German, Italian Subtitles: Arabic, Bulgarian, Croation, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Slovenian Extras: Feature Commentary With Director Doug Liman, The Birth Of The Bourne Identity Behind The Scenes, Alternate Ending, Extended Scenes, Deleted Scenes, Moby Extreme Ways Music Video, Theatrical Trailer, DVDROM Features Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Year of Release: 2002; Origin: United States, Germany, Czech Republic; Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Doug Liman; Producer: Patrick Crowley, Richard N. Gladstein, Doug Liman; Script: Tony Gilroy, W. Blake Herron; Action Director: Nick Powell; Cast Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Clive Owen.
Alternative Titles: N/A
Trailer: Click below to view the trailer for The Bourne Identity
Plot Synopsis
A fisherman trawling the Med finds a body in the ocean and resuscitates the unfortunate soul by stripping him from his wet suit, removing his bullet wounds and uncovering an implant embedded in his back which reveals the sort code for a bank account in Switzerland. When the boy wakes up, he cannot recall any of the events leading up to his rescue or why he was left for dead. Suffering from severe amnesia, he can’t even remember his own name.
In Zurich, a high-tech security vault reveals the memory-blocked renegade as Jason Bourne, alongside a multicoloured array of varying passports and identities, guns and Euros. He is then revealed to be the highly dangerous property of the US Government. As a trained assassin, Bourne is a secret operative used to satisfy the government’s underhand dealings with political and social powers who fail to conform to the superpower’s idealist principals. Only he doesn’t know this yet, and he can’t quite decipher why a team of brainwashed hit men are constantly trying to kill him.
He teams up with Marie in Zurich who promises to drive him to his apartment in Paris, and the two enjoy a whirlwind romance as she tries to help Bourne piece together the fragments of his memory before things get really out of hand. Bourne’s instincts are to kill with discretion and to never be seen, so they keep running in an attempt to not only save their own skins but also discover the real truth.
Review
A fantastically tense, taut thriller which boasts the sort of fast pacing and finesse you would expect to find in a hyperactive James Bond movie. Based on Robert Ludlum’s novel, this entertaining espionage film takes the spy game to new levels with the instantly definable hook of a leading antihero unaware of his own knowledge, power and capabilities. As Jason Bourne pieces together the facts from the leftovers of his life, the audience learns and develops alongside him. This is where Matt Damon’s naïve brilliance comes into its own, portraying both macho heroism and a distinct insecurity with the perfect picture of a little boy lost.
But at least Jason Bourne manages to remember all of the cool stuff which has been drilled into him from his training which now constitutes merely a reactionary, involuntary response, like breaking limbs with his secret martial arts skills, and car chases through the streets of Paris. Even when he discovers he can speak foreign languages with complete fluency, there is a loveable innocence in Bourne’s vacant features. However, just like his character, Bourne delivers a series of double bluffs on both those around him and with the audience, while director Liman does well to trick viewers into confusing the protagonists with the movie’s main villains, with the distinction between good and evil becoming increasingly blurred. Like an unfolding puzzle, the audience is just as clueless as Bourne, even though he is always one step ahead.
The Bourne Identity would form the basis of the Bourne trilogy, which has since come to redefine the slick, American globe trotting thriller in keeping with an alert, politically conscious and insecure post-9/11 world. Yet despite his almost superhuman capabilities, The Bourne Identity remains in a world of dangerous realism, and trades neatly on instinctual human emotion, both through Bourne’s frustrations at his forgotten past and his love for Marie. But few contemporary thrillers of this kind can revel in both brains and brawn in such exciting degrees, and create an instantly recognizable movie franchise in the process. An absolute triumph.
Matt Damon plays secret CIA operative Jason Bourne who stuggles against amnesia while trying to discover his former identity in this tense action packed movie based on the novel by Robert Ludlum. Ben Johnson is drawn in to the film's twisted tale of violence and espionage which puts anything James Bond can do to shame. 
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