Many movies have taken elements of Greengrass’s style and run with it, including Salt (2010), Kate (2021), Anna (2019), The Equaliser I & II (2014, 2018), Proud Mary (2018), Peppermint (2018) and The Protégé (2021). The casting of Matt Damon has proved central to the popularity of the franchise the Damon-less sequel The Bourne Legacy (2012) proved unremarkable, whilst the 2019 series Treadstone was canned after one season. What must certainly be conceded is without the success of Liman’s film, there would be no Bourne series. The trouble (I guess) for Greengrass was that his style ended up becoming a cliché which makes the first, more traditionally shot picture, feel conversely less dated. The director’s then cutting-edge style of shaky cam, hyper-fast edits and cod-documentary feel gave 2004’s sequel The Bourne Supremacy a distinctive kinetic energy that was swiftly picked up by other filmmakers. The Bourne Identity was directed by Doug Liman ( Edge of Tomorrow) and became an unexpected box office smash – but many feel that the series really hit its stride when the UK’s Paul Greengrass took the helm. In the film (as in the novel) Bourne pursues the real-life Carlos the Jackal (Yorgo Voyagis) a similar plot device was used in The Assignment (1997) where Aiden Quinn plays a US navy lieutenant who bears an unfortune resemblance to notorious terrorist (Quinn also plays The Jackal).Ĭarlos the Jackal is currently serving multiple life sentences in France.
Richard Chamberlain ( The Thorn Birds) played an older, less intense Bourne (he was 54 at the time), hewing closer to the novel in a largely forgotten 1988 TV movie, which is currently available to watch on YouTube. In Robert Ludlum’s Bourne novels JB is masquerading as a hit man to infiltrate a terrorist cell, unlike the film series, where he actually is former assassin with many kills. A fresh-faced Matt Damon (then aged 32) played the titular character (real name David Webb), a memory loss-afflicted master assassin with more than a little red in his ledger.
Amazingly, at least to this reviewer, the first film in the popular Bourne franchise was released 20 long years ago.
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