Saturday, August 6, 2016

Jason Bourne (2016)

Director: Paul Greengrass
Writers:. Paul Greengrass, Christopher Rouse
Cinematographer: Barry Ackroyd
Cast:.       Matt Damon, Tommy Lee-Jones, Alicia Vikander, Julia Stiles

As is the case with other Bourne films, Bourne is on the run from CIA hit squads as he tries to uncover things from his past. One would think there isn't much to discover after the end of Ultimatum, the third film in the trilogy which tied the trilogy together nicely like Dude's rug, but they just add one more mystery for him to solve regarding how he ended up as a CIA agent.

The film begins with Julia Stiles in an 'Anonymous' kind of hacking setup hacking the CIA files to obtain the files relating to their black-ops programmes including treadstone. Bourne was living kind of an exiled life but is lured back in when his interest gets piqued by what Stiles hands over to him. On the opposite side there is Tommy Lee-Joness, playing the typical CIA villain from all other Bourne films, and Alicia Vikander who heads the cyber division. Vincent Cassel plays the asset who is hunting Bourne on orders from the villain. If you haven't still figured it out, you can watch the recent honest trailer on Bourne trilogy which points out that all these films have basically the same plot and setup as a backbone to show off its action setpieces.

The latest film which comes almost a decade after Ultimatum, touches upon things that have changed since then like increased privacy concerns related to social media, hacking threats, wikileaks etc. It also plays on the refrain that the likes of Facebook were funded by CIA as a surveillance tool.

Performances are great and the action setpieces are top notch. It is certainly the weakest among the Matt Damon as Bourne films but still a very good watch. Some have complained about Alicia Vikander's role being very light weight but I thought it was an interesting take on an ambiguous ambiguous character when contrasted with the usual way such female characters are portrayed. Bourne says less than 100 words during the whole film. I do feel that there will be another Bourne film on its way which might resolve the unresolved threads from this film. That might also change the mixed opinion that the film has generated.

PS: The social media honcho is named Arun Kaloor and I wonder whether he is supposed to be a Malayalee.

Rating: 3.5/5

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