The Bourne Ultimatum

Director: Paul Greengrass
Screenwriter: Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns, George Nolfi
Starring: Matt Damon, Joan Allen, Julia Stiles, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Paddy Considine
Running time: 115 mins
Certificate: 12A

Spiders. Sharks. Snakes (on a plane). Hollywood’s always pillaged nature in pursuit of a good fright. Ghosts. Witches. Goblins. Moviemakers have thoroughly exploited the supernatural to keep us trembling, too. But the Bourne series uses a very different phobia to keep us on the edge of our seats: the fear of amnesia. Not knowing who we are, where we are, or how the hell we got there is a situation that strikes terror into the very core of our psyche – as The Bourne Ultimatum attests.

Jason Bourne (Damon), a former CIA assassin who was robbed of his memory by “experimental training techniques”, is hunting for his identity. He manages to glean information about Blackbriar, the top-secret operation that funded his training, from a British journalist (Considine), but his former employers have rumbled him. CIA bigwigs Noah Vosen (Strathairn) and Pamela Landy (Allen) will use everything in their arsenal – even trained assassins with instructions to kill Bourne on the spot – to prevent our hero from finding out more about Blackbriar. Bourne’s quest takes in fisticuffs, car chases and rooftop rambles from Moscow to Morocco, but it’s destined to end in the asylum-like Manhattan office of Dr. Albert Kirsch (Finney), the man who conducted his mind-invading training.

The third Bourne movie keeps us enthralled by tapping into the surveillance-induced paranoia of the CCTV era. The CIA, whose moral code is slowly eroded as the film progresses, tracks Bourne’s movement, taps his phone calls and even reads his text messages in a bid to pin down the mutinous spy. Director Greengrass uses the tension-building techniques he pioneered in United 93 - a film about the 9/11 flight bound for The Pentagon - to prevent us from ever relaxing. Rush hour at Waterloo station - a stressful, nervy experience at the best of times - becomes pregnant with terror when Greengrass impresses his frenetic editing, edgy camerawork and pallid lighting upon the throng. But, much as the film is a riot of strangulation scenes, wince-and-you’ll-miss-it duff ‘em ups and thrilling car chases, flashes of wit are allowed to puncture the tension. Perhaps those rumours that Tom Stoppard contributed to the script – in an anonymous capacity, of course - are to be believed?

The movie owes a large part of its success to Damon. His Bourne is brutish, indefatigable and virtually invincible - but never soulless: at one point he admits that he “can see the faces of everyone he’s ever killed”. His puffy, sweaty appearance – for most of the movie Bourne looks like a boxer who’s gone 15 rounds with Mike Tyson – only adds to his believability in a highly physical role. In fact, his performance is filled with such urgency that we’re left rooting for Bourne – a character, of course, who is essentially without character - right up to the denouement.

Gritty, unstylised and tougher than an overcooked steak, the Bourne series has always served as an antidote to the smarminess of Bond – at least until Daniel Craig added to some muscle to the 007 series last year. It's a testament to the success of the third instalment that we leave the cinema feeling suspicious, twitching slightly and wondering: ‘Who’s watching me?’