Directed by Paul Greengrass
The thing with reunions is that people can get stuck on how wonderful things used to be. It has been almost ten years since Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass completed the Bourne trilogy. It was solid genre work, stylistically of a piece (although Greengrass did not helm the initial installment). And now they’re back with Jason Bourne, because apparently there is still some closure to be had. Cynic that I am, it never occurred to me they are simply out to milk the franchise this time.
A hacker has broken into the CIA’s server and is poised to leak top-secret files online. Bourne’s name comes up, if more as a footnote; it is revealed later on that the digital intrusion could have been contained at the outset given the agency’s advanced technological capabilities. On the other hand, some people will stop at nothing to see Bourne dead, so we get this movie, a pastiche of cross-continental mayhem that nevertheless fails to convey the supposed gravity of the plot. As movies go, there’s nothing new about the US government spying on its own citizens.
Speaking of reunions, this one’s missing two important alumni. Tony Gilroy wrote the previous four Bournes, including The Bourne Legacy (2012, with Jeremy Renner playing the lead). With each succeeding installment, Gilroy had managed to reconstruct Bourne’s persona from jagged memories that bubbled up from the character’s fragmented psyche. Greengrass and co-writer Christopher Rouse provide him with one more — this time involving his father — except they sacrifice character arc for cheap revelation: by the time Vincent Cassel comes into focus (freeze frame!), I feel cheated out of holding my bladder.
Also absent is Oliver Wood’s camerawork. In service to Greengrass’ quasi-documentary style, it had a sense of immediacy that Barry Ackroyd tries to match, but instead comes across as plain unfocused and ultimately strains the eye — it is all over the place, and is almost disorienting enough to hide the fact that the actors look like they just want to get the movie over with, including a supremely bored-looking Tommy Lee Jones as villain-in-chief. A bad guy has never been so relieved to get his comeuppance (like Michael Caine said of Jaws: The Revenge, “Never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house it built, and it is terrific”).
For all the action, Jason Bourne is devoid of thrill and suspense. Filing out of the theater, I overhear the girl next to me apologizing to her companion for having slept through the movie.
I can not help myself. “Sus,” I say to her, “you had the better experience.”
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