Bourne to be wild

The Bourne Ultimatum
Director: Paul Greengrass
Cast: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, David Strathairn
Certification: PG-13
Runtime: 111 mins

That’s what makes us special—no more red tape!” coos silky Deputy CIA Director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) to colleague Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), as he explains just how it is that he can blithely order state-sponsored murder without asking permission.
 Landy’s disgusted, but it is amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) who really has a problem with it, he being at the top of the Vosen’s to-do list. But as The Bourne Ultimatum hits the ground running, it appears to the casual observer that Vosen has vastly underestimated his outmanned, outgunned opponent. This third adaptation in the series based on Robert Ludlum’s novels is not exactly gripping, but as Bourne trots the globe, barely one step ahead of the stalking grim reaper, its adrenalin-pumped trajectory is a lot of fun.
It is a reporter of UK’s Guardian newspaper, Simon Ross (Paddy Considine), that sets the tale in motion. He has found a well-connected, well-informed source and written a story about Jason Bourne. Vosen and his cohorts at the CIA are desperate to uncover Ross’s source, while Bourne looks at the man as the one who holds the key to his elusive past. So the race is on to reach the journalist, the lengths to which Vosen will go to achieve his objective offering an indication of just how far he will go and how ruthless is he is likely to be when his big prize, Bourne, comes into view.
But Bourne is assassin as superhero as the race is enjoined, a marathon sprint that leads from London to Madrid to Tangiers to Manhattan. Damon’s strength as an actor is his regular guy persona, likeable even as the blank slate that is Bourne, but the character’s actions are anything but regular. Whatever comes his way, be it bullets, bombs, hand-to-hand combat, cars crashing and spinning out of control, it does not matter, he is ready for it all. Like the Energizer bunny, he just keeps going and going, surviving to vex his opponents at the agency for another day.
Director Paul Greengrass camera and editing are as fluid as Bourne’s actions. The camera is rarely still and that does lend the drama a certain propulsive momentum, but is also works somewhat against it. Greengrass, a filmmaker certainly capable of getting under the skin as Bloody Sunday and United 93 will attest, is content to glide along the surface with Bourne. The action never flags, but the story and the characters are shallow. This is glossy entertainment and nothing more.

This film is currently showing Seef I at 10.30am, 11.30am, 1pm, 2pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm, 6pm, 7pm, 8.30pm, 9.30pm, 11pm and midnight; Saar Cineplex at 11am, 1.30pm, 4pm, 6.30pm, 9pm and 11.30pm; Al Jazeera Cineplex at 2pm, 4.30pm, 7pm, 9.30pm and midnight.