Matt Damon was in career free-fall in 2002. Five years had passed since the Oscar glory of Good Will Hunting, and a series of box-office failures (including The Legend of Bagger Vance and All The Pretty Horses) meant that the offers were drying up. Jason Bourne saved him, although the effect was far from instantaneous. Based on a novel by Robert Ludlum originally published in the late 70s, The Bourne Identity cast Damon as an amnesiac CIA assassin struggling to establish his identity whilst evading various Agency "assets" sent to eliminate him. Indie director Doug Liman helmed the project in a gritty, guerilla style, with a screenplay that was rarely locked-down, and with a total of four separate re-shoots eventually shoe-horned into the production schedule. Even Damon appeared to have little faith in the project, publicly doubting that the two additional novels in the franchise would go before the cameras.Perhaps appropriately, the film opened against The Sum of All Fears, a prequel to the Jack Ryan franchise that replaced Harrison Ford with Damon's childhood friend and rising megastar Ben Affleck. The square-jawed Affleck was a more conventional action-hero, and proved a box-office success as a young Ryan chasing stolen nuclear weapons across the globe. The studio reacted instinctively and promised a sequel that is still yet to materialise. In stark contrast, The Bourne Identity made up for its poor box-office reception through stunning DVD sales, and against all expectations a franchise grew.
Damon's depiction of Jason Bourne as a cold, unemotional and isolated individual was instantly the heart of the film's success, and has since transferred to both The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. Appropriately, the world inhabited by Bourne is shot with a gritty realism, initiated by Doug Liman's handheld, indie sensibilities, and continued by United 93 director Paul Greengrass in both sequels, as Liman fell back to the position of executive producer. All three films are action-packed, with the obligatory hand-to-hand combat, car chases and breath-snatching stuntwork. What elevates the franchise and has caused a seismic shift throughout the genre, is the raw, back-to-basics approach, with short, sharp and functional violence puntuating a support-cast of strong character-actors. Over the three films, the support cast has included Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, Joan Allen, Scott Glenn and Albert Finney. Their committed performances bring gravitas and credibility to often ludicrous action (Bourne jumping several stories down a spiral staircase, nailing a goon with a single shot in mid-flight, and using a dead body as a crash-mat at the bottom..??). As an audience we're left believing we could all do the same if only we were that creative.
The film's most notable influence has been on the Bond franchise. The casting of Daniel Craig as Pierce Brosnan's successor for Casino Royale was the first indication of a major change. Then came the shift in tone, with Craig's younger, leaner Bond chasing a free-runner across a perilous Madagascan building site before tearing up an embassy, all in the film's opening ten minutes. Bourne did the same thing in Switzerland, only without firing a shot. Craig's Bond is suave and cold, and makes his first kill in a public urinal; killing is, after all, an unpleasant business, and Bond, like Bourne, is now more likely to quietly contemplate the horror of his actions post-kill, than to offer a quip for the camera.
Odd, though, how things seem to have come full-circle. The Bourne franchise has adjusted to mainstream success and is happy to subtly acknowledge its style and origins. "You couldn't make this stuff up" deadpans Scott Glenn's Agency chief as a subordinate reels off the Story So Far, in a Langley briefing-room early in The Bourne Ultimatum. Later, when the action finally moves to New York after two films spent running across Europe, Bourne escapes by apparently performing a guerilla-version of a car-park stunt that was the highlight of Tomorrow Never Dies. "He just drove off the roof!" cries a stunned goon as he heads off in pursuit.
Although Bourne inevitably escapes death during Ultimatum's appropriately-executed finale, his position is little better than it was at the beginning of the franchise. Having pieced together his identity and determinedly rejected it, what else is there? For Jason Bourne, the possiblity of a fourth cinematic outing after a very healthy US opening weekend. For the relevant 21st Century action-hero, constant adjustment to the uncertain times in which we live point to continued paranoia and isolation from humanity. Savvy cinema-goers the world over may come to demand it.
