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Suspense propels this tale
WHEN a body is rescued at sea and the man (finally alive) doesn’t remember his identity it is ideal stuff for a spy film. And when this fugitive on the run meets up with an equally enigmatic female the fare is doubly suspenseful. That’s the recipe then of The Bourne Identity, the quintessential spy thriller based on a Robert Ludlum novel. Remember seeing Osterman Weekend in the early 1980s, another of Ludlum’s novels, and though it wove around a host of characters and kept the suspense alive the end was a bit of a let-down. Not The Bourne Identity, it is the perfect spy story. The fishermen who pick up
Jason Bourne (Matt Dammon) with two bullet wounds in his back give him
enough money to reach Switzerland. But the amnesiac Bourne is all at sea
about this identity. "I don’t know who I am," is his
anguished cry and so he sets out for the American embassy. But he is
being shadowed. Could it be the CIA? And then he meets a wayward spirit
in Marie Kreutz (Franka Potente, the Heroine of Run, Lola Run)
and their cup of woe overflows. |
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To make matters worse, Bourne finds in his possession a number of fake passports. There are twists and turns galore and a good deal of action to go with it. Car chases in the streets of Paris and slowly, ever so slowly, the plot unfolds itself. It takes all of 140 minutes but it is absorbing drama with Matt Dammon and Franka Potente hogging most of the limelight. Oliver Wood’s camerawork is another asset as this staccato-paced thriller careens it way about having the viewer in a vice-like grip right through the film. |
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