Same formula, same chases, same high-class thrills from a great franchise.
Jason Bourne
Grade: B
Director: Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips)
Screenplay: Greengrass, Christopher Rouse from Robert Ludlum characters
Cast: Matt Damon (The Martian), Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men)
Rating: PG-13
by John DeSando
“Why would he come back now?” CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones)
“He” is of course Jason Bourne, super spy, and the actor, Matt Damon, comes back to the franchise for at least the chance to work with action director Paul Greengrass and make multiple million dollars. As for Bourne, he’s always catching up with himself, be it his faulty memory or finding his father.
If you’re going to produce a thriller, then it better be thrilling, as the film Jason Bourne is for practically every minute of its two hours. Although I’m sated with car chases in many thrillers, Greengrass makes the several here a delightful adrenaline rush. Perhaps his are outstanding because they add to the fabulous nature of the franchise and the mystery of who killed Jason’s dad.
That’s what he’s looking for, not to bring down the hyper-surveillance machine called the CIA, and its director, Robert Dewey. Wait, Wait, I think there’s a germ of a good idea lurking behind the fisticuffs and bullets: Are our treasured institutions invading our privacy? The agreement pending between the CIA and a Facebook—like company would severely compromise each citizen’s privacy, and like the young-adult film, Nerve, even the entertainment of our youth is replete with danger.
Jason Bourne is certainly home to many of the thriller genre’s tropes, including illogical good luck in gun fights and car chases and the usual surprises about characters you thought you knew. The final fight between good and evil is de rigueur. Although I was half-way rooting for bad guy Asset because Vincent Cassell plays him so menacingly well, I didn’t want him to beat Bourne.
Enjoy your summer thrills with this entertaining speed machine of a movie, and remember, there’s always more to Jason Bourne than just the thrills: “I volunteered because of a lie. They said my father was killed by Terrorists! He wasn’t killed by terrorists, was he?”
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
