The Bourne Identity

Andrew's had a cold all week and so to celebrate our day off together we decided to have a Bourne marathon today!

A baby face Matt Damon is found floating in the ocean by some fishing ship. They think the body is dead, and they discover 2 bullet shots in the back and some bank code that was imbedded in his thigh. Big surprise, he's alive and has no idea where he is or who he is. Amnesia!!  He spends about 2 weeks on the fishing boat with the crew, learns he can speak many languages, but still nothing comes back to him. He's pretty frustrated.Once they have arrived ashore he feels pretty lost and alone. While sleeping on a bench one night, he is woken up by cops and he accidentally beats them up. He then decides to go to the bank in Zurich and check out why he has this account imbedded in his thigh. In it is a lot of money in different currencies, lots of different passports that are all him, and a gun. He takes everything but the gun and leaves in a hurry. He learns his name is Jason Bourne, supposedly.

Next up is a trip to the American Embassy where he can get information about his American Passport I suppose. Things don't go so well as people from the bank were linked with the CIA keeping track of him. They are trying to find him. He gets spooked at the Embassy and beats some more people up and hastily leaves. He demands a ride from a girl he noticed inside who was having troubles and low on money. He offers her money to drive him to France, where the address on his passport is listed.

They bond over the long drive, and he  opens up to Marie about his amnesia and stuff. They get to his apartment and its pretty nice, but mostly empty. He learns about one of his aliases, which is supposedly dead. All of a sudden an assassin busts in and he and Jason fight. It's pretty gruesome, in a bone breaking, pen shoved up your skin kind of way. Anytime it looks like a bone is about to be broken, I immediately throw my hand in from of my eyes, because I just can't handle that!

Now he's even more determined to figure out who he is, the whole time the government is out looking for him and Marie. She changes her hairstyle to a dark, short choppy hairdo, and they become romantically involved. He eventually learns that he was an assassin, who was sent to kill some important African politician named Wombosi. He failed. Not long after though, Wombosi was murdered in Paris by Clive Owen, another assassin.

Marie still chooses to stay with him despite knowing what he is. They travel to her brothers house out in the country. Unfortunately Clive Owen follows them there and he and Bourne shoot at each other in countryside. Bourne comes out victorious and Owen's final words are "Look at us, look at what they make us give". I was pretty sad when he died.


He and Marie have parted ways, Jason learns about a small headquarters in Paris that just might hold all the answers he needs. Inside he finds a man named Conklin who was in charge of his assassin self, and Nikki ( Julia Stiles) who was the logistics person who monitored all the assets. He learns the truth about his failed assassin attempt while talking to Conklin. Apparently he had a moment of doubt and conscience because Wombosi's children were around him on a yacht. He left but got shot on his way off the boat. He still needs to learn more about the Treadstone project that he is somehow involved with, but unfortunately some people have come to kill him as always and he has to make a rushed exit. He uses a dead body and jumps down like a 10 story stairwell, shooting a guy midfall and then using his deadbody surfboard as buffer when he lands. He leaves hoping to be done with all of this, and another assassin who we think is off to kill him, actually kills Conklin instead. 

He let some time pass and he finds Marie off the grid somewhere in Greece. They can be together now!

I do enjoy these action packed movies and seeing all the clever things that the hero does, but I find them kind of hard to write about in blog form.

Andrew' Closing Thought: It's the start to an awesome action trilogy

Up Next: The Bourne Supremacy