Taking advantage of the last free, blissful hours and days before the DNC completed its transformation of Boston from the Athens of America into a police state [uh oh, it's the protest pen for me!], the 'Fesser and I went to the movies on Friday night. In our real-life state of seige, the last thing we wanted to see was some clown outrun a cheesy CGI fireball, so we checked in with an old friend, one Jason Bourne.
Admittedly, we are both suckers for the sort of workmanlike spy thriller that every critic now dubs comfort food: solid, unassuming pictures like, say, Ronin, where the pyrotechnics are actorly, not computer generated. As a child of the Cold War, the cinetrix is inclined to think the more triple-crossing spies the better anyway. Just ladle 'em on, and I'll lap it up. Also, knowing that a real guy, albeit not the star, is actually driving a real car the wrong way down a twisty European city street causes me to bounce up and down in my chair with delight, clapping my hands and chanting "Again! Again!" Isn't that what the original Cooper Minis were designed to do? Drive down stairs?
So it should come as no surprise that The Bourne Identity was right up my twisty European city street for some escapist action fun. ['Fesser fave Doug Liman in the director's chair didn't hurt.] Its sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, loses Chris Cooper but gains flinty Joan Allen, lets Brian Cox be magisterial while allowing his solid corpulence to hint at rot within, and--milagro--gives Julia Stiles something to do. As globetrotting chase movies go, it's deeply satisfying stuff.
Is there a phrase like l'esprit de l'escalier for McGyver-esque ingenuity? At one point Bourne deliberately causes a commotion in a supermarket yet somehow manages to shoplift the three items he needs most from its shelves. He may be the most resourceful man ever, but as we feel each blow land with an empathetic wince, we are constantly reminded that he is just a man.
Director Paul Greengrass's head-down approach to action is a delight. The way Bourne and the camera move through the crenellations and embrasures of the European Union and beyond makes a girl giddy. At the end of one beautifully choreographed action sequence, set in Berlin, the audience broke into spontaneous, admiring applause. [Folks, you should be proud.]
I will try to remember that sense of delight as this week unfolds, when I am likely to be stuck stewing in gridlock as another dignitary's motorcade goes whizzing by, sirens flashing, for all the world like a convoy of Russian gangsters. But if you catch footage of a motorist freestyling on the soft shoulders and staircases of Boston on the evening news this week, it may be the cinetrix, blowing her top and blowing her cover.
[Or it may be that I have you in my sights. Watch yer backs.]
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