Like most good spy thrillers, The Bourne Identity is drenched in paranoia.  Anyone you see on the screen might turn suddenly and start shooting. 

The story opens in the Mediterranean, where a fishing trawler picks up an unconscious man floating in the water.  The ship's doctor removes bullets from the man's back, and also an information pellet embedded in his hip.  When he regains consciousness, the man (Matt Damon) can't remember who he is. 

The information pellet contains the number of a Swiss bank account, so with modest funds donated by the generous fishermen, our man goes forth on his 'Who Am I?' quest.   Even before making it to the bank, he starts learning uncomfortable things about himself.  When confronted by policemen who tell him he can't sleep in the park, he learns he is someone who can move like lightning to knock out and disarm two men. 

His bank deposit box gives him some answers, but also more questions.  He finds his photo ID.  Whew.  He's American, his name is Jason Bourne and he lives in Paris. 

But wait.  The box also contains a stack of other IDs in other names that also bear his photo.  Plus a big stack of currency from various countries.  Plus a gun.

Meanwhile, in an office in CIA headquarters, people are scrambling.  An operation has gone awry.  Bourne's visit to the Swiss bank is known to them, and agents are activated.  The ruthless boss snaps, "I want Bourne in a bodybag by sundown." 

Still the hapless amnesiac, Bourne goes to the US Embassy for help.  But danger waits for him there, too, and his escape gives us (and him) more clues as to just how well-trained and deadly he is.

Outside the  embassy, he chances across American ex-pat drifter Marie (Franka Potente), and offers her first $10,000 and then $20,000 to drive him to Paris.  Flat broke and with nowhere else to turn, Marie agrees and is swept up in the danger and intrigue that are following him. 

And yaaaay - we go to Paris!  (I suppose it's theoretically possible to set a taut paranoid espionage thriller in Des Moines, but isn't it more fun when it's in Paris?)

In Paris, Bourne and Marie find his luxury flat, some more information about who he is (or supposedly is) - and a killer who crashes through the window and attempts to take out them both.  The wannabe killer has both of their pictures - whoever is after Bourne knows Marie is with him and now wants them both dead.

The plot includes chases and fights, very well done, lots of suspense.  You're rooting for Bourne, even though you sense that in his pre-amnesia life he wasn't exactly a saint - saints don't wind up with such upscale living quarters.  But this Bourne is literally as innocent as a newborn. 

I wondered at first if I should trust Marie or if she was going to pull out a gun in the closing sequence.  But then I reasoned that if she were part of the pursuit, the pursuers would have had to preposition her at the embassy, and the man they were chasing would not have gone to the embassy in the first place; Bourne only went there because he had amnesia, and his trip there came as a huge surprise.

Based on a Robert Ludlum book from the 1980s, The Bourne Identity has almost a timeless quality about it.  It comes from the quasi-mythical realm of spooks and assassins, and is an excellent example of the genre. 

But, may I quibble?  As I say, the spy thriller exists in a mythical realm, with conventions you accept because they're standard and thrilling.  The agent with the martial arts and knowledge of numerous languages and hyper-awareness, living the high life in beautiful Paris.  Okay.  I accept that.  But there was one detail I simply could not buy into.  To help disguise Marie, Bourne colored and then cut her long multi-colored hair -- and the result was tousled gamine perfection.  Come on, producers!   Let an amateur with a pair of scissors cut a woman's hair, especially chopping straight across like Bourne was doing - and the result would be Escaped Mental Patient!

But still - fun and exciting, if not exactly deep and thought-provoking.

Back to Joyce's Pix of the Flix