The Bourne Identity

Ratings : * Avoidable ** Average *** Good **** Must Watch

During a stormy night, a group of Italian fishermen find a man (Damon) floating in the Mediterranean Sea off Marseille, with two gunshot wounds in his back and a device with the number of a Swiss bank account embedded in his hip. Suffering from retrograde amnesia, he finds he is versed in several European languages and can perform basic tasks such as writing and tying knots, but he cannot remember anything about himself or how he got there. When the ship docks in Oneglia, he sets off for Zürich to investigate the bank account. At CIA headquarters in Langley, Deputy Director Ward Abbott finds out about a failed assassination attempt on deposed African dictator Nykwana Wombosi. Meanwhile, the mysterious man finds out he is very proficient in hand-to-hand combat and has a strong knowledge of firearms when he subdues two police officers effortlessly. At the bank in Zürich, the man opens his safe deposit box to find several passports with his picture, large amounts of money, and a gun. With still no idea what his name is, he assumes the one from the first US passport, Jason Bourne. When American and Swiss authorities attempt to capture him at the US consulate, he offers Marie Helena Kreutz $20,000 to take him to Paris, the city of the address on his Jason Bourne passport. In the meantime, Alexander Conklin, the head of the black ops group Operation Treadstone, assures Abbott that he will destroy any evidence connecting them to the field agent responsible for the operation. He activates three operatives to take down the agent: Castel, Manheim, and the Professor.

Damon as Bourne, scaling the wall of the US Consulate in Zürich.En route to Paris, Marie, who is nervous and rambling on, gets upset when Jason doesn't respond to her conversation. He then explains that he doesn't know who he is, nor does he know what to expect when they arrive in Paris. When Bourne arrives at the address on his passport, he is immediately recognized by the building superintendent, and based on the contents of his apartment, concludes he is in the shipping business. In search of more clu es, he hits redial on his phone and is connected to the Hotel Regina, who recognize one of his aliases, John Michael Kane. They tell him that Kane was a guest who died two weeks before in a car crash. A few moments later, Castel blasts through a window and engages Bourne in hand-to-hand combat. After Bourne subdues him he attempts to interrogate him, but Castel jumps out the window, preferring suicide. Marie finds wanted posters in Castel's bag with both her and Bourne's pictures on them.

Bourne continually advises Marie to leave him as he's trying to figure out who he is and why people are after him. He tells her to go to the police and explain everything to them; she chooses to remain with him and encourages him to figure it out. After eluding the Paris police and spending the night, they follow the trail to the Hotel Regina. There, Marie asks for John Michael Kane's hotel records. Meanwhile, Conklin plants a body in the Parisian morgue to fool Wombosi into thinking Kane is dead, but Wombosi knows that the body is not his assailant, and Conklin has Wombosi killed in his home by the Professor. Bourne investigates the incident, the previous assassination attempt, and John Michael Kane's contacts, and concludes that he is the failed killer. He and Marie escape the city into the country to stay at Marie's ex-lover's house, where Jason decides that he no longer wants to know about his past.

In the morning, the Professor comes for Jason. Jason realizes he is there when Eamon's children's dog does not show up for breakfast, and Eamon confirms the dog always is around for breakfast, Bourne deducing that someone killed the dog, and soon after he and Marie discover the phone is dead. Both assassins are in a field, and Bourne shoots the Professor twice with the shotgun, and interrogates him briefly, revealing their connection to Operation Treadstone. The Professor dies almost immediately from blood loss, saying, "Look at us. Look at what they make you give." Keeping $30,000, he sends Marie away with the rest of the money for her own safety. He uses the Professor's phone to arrange a meeting with Conklin on the Pont Neuf, which he uses as a distraction to plant a tracking device on Conklin's vehicle to discover the location of Operation Treadstone's safe house in Paris.

Bourne uses an electronic device to trigger the car alarms of all the cars parked on the street, and when the noise distracts the guards, he climbs into the operations safe house where Nicky Parsons and Conklin are.

When he meets Conklin, he begins to remember his last mission. He had backed out of the Wombosi assassination after seeing Wombosi's children (realizing that if he killed Wombosi he would have to kill all the children as well to make sure there were no witnesses, since Wombosi's murder was supposed to look like members of his own cartel had killed him), and was shot while attempting to escape the boat, left floating in the water. He tells Conklin that he is leaving Treadstone and to not try to find him. He then realizes Conklin silently triggered an alarm and has backup on the way. Bourne leaves Nicky unharmed, and has a shootout with several CIA agents, and escapes into the night. Abbott decides that Treadstone should be closed down, and has the last operative murder Conklin. He goes before an Oversight Committee and explains that Treadstone's purpose was simply to serve as an assassin-training program then immediately shifts the focus of the hearing to an idea for a new project codenamed "Blackbriar." Some time later, Jason finds Marie in Mykonos, renting out scooters to tourists, and the two reunite.

My Rating : ****

Genre : Action/Thriller

Director : Doug Liman

Cast : Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Clive Owen, Anthony Green.