Good Spy Hunting
Matt Damon Scores with Bourne Sequel

Spy movies are one of the toughest genres in all of filmmaking. The subject is a very adult one but the tendency is to dumb down the intrigue and pump up the gadgets and explosions. James Bond movies are a perfect example. They are usually high in entertainment value with no real relationship to the actual world of espionage.

Matt Damon stars in the new spy thriller The Bourne Supremacy.

That’s one of the things that makes The Bourne Supremacy, starring Matt Damon, such a breath of fresh air. It deftly combines flashy action sequences with a believable spy story—one that shows both the sinister and the bureaucratic side of the government spy game.

Any quality spy movie should start with a credible source and author Robert Ludlum’s series on trained assassin Jason Bourne is as good as it gets. Ludlum’s knowledge of the spy game and of the CIA hierarchy lends believability to the plot, characters and dialogue of The Bourne Supremacy.

The original Bourne books are set in the Cold War era and for the initial film in the series, The Bourne Identity, the filmmakers correctly made the decision to update the story into the present. “We made an intellectual spy film, a paranoid thriller, but we did it in an unconventional way,” said producer Frank Marshall of the first film.

At the beginning of the sequel, Bourne and girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente) have managed to get as far away from the spy world as possible and are living in a seaside village in India. He is still trying to put together the shattered pieces of his memory and discover his true identity while coming to terms with his new life. Meanwhile, a CIA assignment in Berlin ends in disaster with agents killed and money and important files stolen. The perpetrators make the job look like the work of Bourne and at the same time put a hit on him in India.

Bourne is pulled back into the spy game and the revenge aspect of The Bourne Supremacy is reminiscent of classic samurai movies where one man must take on many enemies on a journey of atonement.

Director Paul Greengrass does an excellent job of propelling the story at an exciting pace and utilizing his secondary players. The excellent cast includes Brian Cox, Julia Stiles and triple Oscar nominee Joan Allen. Here Allen plays Pamela Landy, the savvy agent whose operation was supposedly sabotaged by Bourne.

Greengrass also made the right decision to film as many scenes on location as possible and the backgrounds of Berlin, Moscow and India give the film its air of international intrigue.

It is only at the end of the film that the story unravels somewhat. Until the story moves to Moscow, all of the action is part of the plot and character development. After that it devolves into a car chase shootout that cheapens much of the previous 90-minutes worth of intellectual spy thriller. If the car chase is to be believed, those little Russian taxicabs are the toughest cars on earth. Car chase aside, The Bourne Supremacy is one of the finest spy films of the past decade—much better than the Mission Impossible movies.

The Bourne Supremacy ends with several plot “wrap-ups” and enough loose ends to possibly warrant a sequel. Now that Bourne has a lead on his true identity will he try to find his roots? Now that he has come to terms with his former employers, will the CIA try to rein him in for future missions?

Hopefully, the filmmakers will decline to make a third installment unless they have a script as good as the ones used in the first two movies. It would be a shame to tarnish the Bourne name now.

Since coming out of nowhere and winning the Oscar for Best Screenplay in 1997 (Good Will Hunting), Boston-based actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have made the most of their sudden celebrity. While Affleck has been the more high profile of the two, you could make a case that Damon has put together a more solid acting career. In addition to the two Bourne films, he has proven to be a capable actor in serious dramas with his work in Saving Private Ryan and The Talented Mr. Ripley. He is equally comfortable in comedies such as Dogma, Stuck on You and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. He will appear in two upcoming films this year, Ocean’s Twelve and Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.

The Bourne Supremacy is rated PG-13 for violence and intense action, and for brief language. It is currently playing at Regal Cinemas in Boone.