nan | 楠木

Closure. It’s not easy to come to terms with. For some people, it’s not easy to get. Especially when you’ve lost your memory, and yet you’re haunted by bits and pieces of your past. For a former black-ops agent known (belovedly, that is, by espionage fans and movie-goers around the world) as Jason Bourne, his past is his future, and the only destination he is headed is the beginning of it all. And in The Bourne Ultimatum, the third and final (maybe?) installment of the Bourne trilogy, he is finally ariving at closure.

In The Bourne Ultimatum, the film picks up right where it ended last time. Bourne is in Moscow, injured, escaping police. He breaks into a medical facility, patches himself up, and of course dispatches a couple of ignorant police officers in the process. As he calmly puts down the gun he was pointing at the second cop (the gun being taken from the first cop who is on the ground, unconscious), he says (in Russian), “my argument is not with you.”

In fact, that’s about all he knows. He wants to get to the bottom of things, but he knows little. Luckily for Bourne, a Guardian reporter has been talking to a source, and publishing stories in the paper. Bourne arranges for a meet with the reporter, but the meeting is disrupted as the reporter was already under surveillance. The reporter is expertly taken care of by another black-ops agent, but Bourne gathers enough data and escapes to carry on the chase.

And it’s a long and windy chase. In due time he will meet many previous friends and foes, including former Treadstone colleague Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) and senior CIA agent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) from the last film. There isn’t much time for chit-chat, although as an anecdotal tidbit, there seems to be hint of a romantic relationship between Parsons and Bourne, before Bourne became Bourne.

But that’s really a small nostalgic piece of information, when Bourne is on to much bigger things. His main adversary this time around is CIA deputy director Noah Vosen, played by the skilled David Strathairn (of Good Night, and Good Luck fame), and to a lesser extent, CIA director Ezra Kramer, played by Scott Glenn. Mr. Glenn is little involved in the everyday chasing of Bourne, which is a shame, considering the actor’s capabilities. Mr. Strathairn, on the other hand, has his hands full, and his performance is on par, though at times I did miss Chris Cooper. Perhaps it was the class conveyed by Mr. Strathairn in Good Night, and Good Luck; he just doesn’t appear ruthless enough.

Matt Damon, meanwhile, is very immersed in his role. Bourne is a man with a haunted past, and the closer he gets to his final destination, the more pain he feels. Damon’s weary eyes, in fact, are the only warmth that is left in the cold, cold world he is out to shatter. And lest there be any misconceptions about his determination, he leaves a trail of havoc and destruction – and plenty of dead bodies – in his path to closure.

The action, needless to say, drives this film. The intensity rarely lets go, and the blaring soundtrack hardly pauses (and is sometimes inaudible at times due to the ambience of screaming police sirens blaring past). Bourne navigates himself through one web to the next, and jumps buildings, rides bikes, does hand-combat, as well as driving himself into multiple car crashes on purpose. Any means necessary, impossible or not, and he will do it.

So when closure is finally ensured, it is almost anti-climatic and disappointing. Now that Bourne knows everything about his past, and the wrongs are duly corrected, it seems that the excitement has also died. But who knows? Something tells me there is still to come.

9/10