Jason Bourne

JASON BOURNE (Paul Greengrass, 2016)

In JASON BOURNE the title character (Matt Damon) is regaining his memory while staying off the CIA’s radar, but he still has questions about his nebulous past before becoming an operative for the agency. Former colleague Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) hacks into the CIA and obtain files key to helping Bourne understand who has used and deceived him for many years. Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), head of the CIA’s cyber unit, spots Parsons’ activity and manages to place malware on the downloaded files, although important information is still in the hands of a rogue agent.

Parsons arranges to meet Bourne in Athens while intelligence officials strategize how to nab or eliminate them. As the chase spreads to Berlin and then London, Lee appeals to CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) to let her oversee the operation to bring Bourne back in and reestablish him as the valuable asset he is. Meanwhile, Dewey faces another threat to the agency’s power and secrecy when Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), the CEO of a social media corporation, threatens to come clean about the confidential funding that makes his company complicit with government surveillance of the population.

As the fifth film in the series, the fourth with Damon’s Bourne character, it comes as no surprise that JASON BOURNE is essentially another serving of what has been delivered in the past. Director and co-writer Paul Greengrass is at the helm for the third time of the frenetically-shot and crisply edited action series. Editor Christopher Rouse has a co-screenwriting credit. Without knowing Rouse’s specific contributions, it makes a lot of sense for him to be credited there, as JASON BOURNE is told largely through how it’s cut. Strip the film of its dialogue, and there’s probably little crucial information the audience would miss. In the global marketplace, this film represents close to the ideal: an action movie that translates regardless of language or subtitles.

There’s much to admire on a purely technical level about how the action is sculpted. Although events often unfold in chaotic situations with a bobbing camera and short shot lengths, Greengrass and Rouse keep the viewer oriented. For all of the activity within the frames and the speed with which they change, these sequences remain coherent rather than merging into one big blur of sound and sensation. The sheer volume of frenzied pursuits and combat threatens to engulf all else. After JASON BOURNE arrives in Las Vegas and builds to a furious climax, the unrelenting motion earns hard-won appreciation, but for the first half the busy nature and usual cover-up particulars make a bland return of the star actor to the franchise.

Damon may be back back in the role for the first time in nine years, but he’s treated as if a computer scan was made of him and then animated to suit the script’s needs. It’s no reflection on Damon as a performer; he’s just playing an impersonal part in a two-hour action whirlwind. If Bourne is being fashioned as an American James Bond, then the character needs to be given the space to have a personality or be somewhat less task-oriented. Otherwise he’s just an avatar in well-executed fight scenes.

Grade: C+

Captain Phillips

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (Paul Greengrass, 2013)

Based on the true story of a container ship hijacked by Somali pirates in April 2009, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS follows Tom Hanks as the title character as he strives to protect his crew and stay alive through the ordeal.  Vermont-based Richard Phillips picks up the Maersk Alabama in a port in Oman and is en route to Kenya when he spots two boats he suspects are being driven by pirates.  Although he is able to outrun them on the first attempt, another skiff returns the next day with four men who succeed in taking control of the cargo ship.

Their leader is Muse (Barkhad Abdi), a reed of a man who makes a living ransoming ships and their crews for a local warlord.  He promises that no harm will come to the men on the ship as long as everyone follows his orders.  They just want to get paid.  The captain does what he can to stall Muse and his team, but despite the best efforts of Phillips and his crew, the standoff ends with him in the lifeboat with the four pirates as their hostage.  From there the race is on whether the U.S. Navy can intercept them and safely extract Phillips before the pirates reach Somalia’s coast.

Even with the foreknowledge that the hero is delivered from danger, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS plays out as an expert action thriller.  Director Paul Greengrass’ filmography includes the process movies BLOODY SUNDAY and UNITED 93, which use documentary techniques to reveal how real-life events unfolded, and two installments in the BOURNE series.  In CAPTAIN PHILLIPS he combines his skills for authentically recreating historical episodes and investing plot with the awe and breathless excitement of Hollywood suspense and action spectacles.  Regardless of news accounts and Phillips’ book, these endeavors seem barely believable, yet Greengrass stages the hijacking and rescue as convincing evidence of military and technological might..

In his best performance in nearly a decade Hanks disappears into the role of a man thrust into an extraordinary survival situation.  He plays Phillips as always being strategic yet not inhumanly clever considering the circumstances confronting him.  Hanks showcases the character’s tactical flexibility as an extension of the attention to detail his job demands of him.  In this situation he applies emotional aptitude with mechanical calculations.  Hanks seals a terrific performance with a devastating final scene.  His post-stress breakdown highlights his technical ability as an actor, but more impressively, his loss of control conveys the raw feeling triggered in this experience.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS screenwriter Billy Ray isn’t shy about drawing an equivalency between the American and Somalian captains to reflect on the world economy.  By no means is the film an apologia for hijacking ships, but it asks viewers to consider the financial ecosystem that brings Phillips and Muse together.  The pirate’s decisions are not justified, yet Muse is acting in accordance with the opportunities he has.  Both men are offered jobs and accept them.  One has the advantage of not needing to employ illegal and immoral means to scrape by, but with a shrinking globe, the two become more likely to cross paths.  

Grade: A

Green Zone

GREEN ZONE (Paul Greengrass, 2010)

Time and again Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) follows intelligence reports regarding the locations of Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2003 Baghdad, but much to his unit's frustration in GREEN ZONE, they find absolutely nothing. A source known as Magellan has supplied all of the information that predicated the United States' intervention in Iraq, yet the experiences of troops on the ground and doubts of a CIA operative suggest that the books have been cooked, so to speak.

In reteaming Damon and director Paul Greengrass, who made the last two Jason Bourne movies together, GREEN ZONE becomes a crypto BOURNE film that again finds a single man doggedly trying to uncover the truth and take down those who would hide it. Driving the narrative is the bad intelligence and futile search for WMDs that characterized the start of the ongoing Iraq War, so there's no doubt that GREEN ZONE cannot avoid the taint of dividing viewers according to political ideologies.

The film comes down squarely against a war that has proven costly in American and Iraqi lives, especially if it was conceived out of lies, so it's tailor-made for hot button editorials and seething viewers sympathetic to both sides of the Congressional aisle. Depending on your view, the film whips you into righteous anger or offended antagonism.

Stripped of its political urgency, GREEN ZONE is a dynamic action film akin to recent Best Picture winner THE HURT LOCKER. Greengrass utilizes the cinema verite style that has been his trademark since BLOODY SUNDAY. The wobbly camerawork and quick cutting tend to induce fatigue, especially during a climactic nighttime chase of an Iraqi general through war-torn streets, but the director brings an undeniable immediacy to the material that a more static aesthetic would struggle to maintain.

Occasionally Greg Kinnear relieves the film's unrelenting nature as an administration toady obstructing the hero's best efforts. The ending, which can be interpreted as a conventionally happy conclusion, has produced grumbles in some corners, but in retrospect, I wonder if it isn't one last gut punch regarding the irrelevance of facts. GREEN ZONE may be too intent on achieving its purpose to unwind for some necessary spells, but as a politically-charged action film, it accomplishes the mission.

Grade: B-