With the James Bond series in another period of decline, The Bourne Identity introduced the world to a newer, more lethal brand of spy thriller in 2002. However, even the best spies tend to make mistakes, and leave it to Jeremy at Cinema Sins to pick apart how Jason tends to act like he was Bourne yesterday.
Released via the official YouTube channel of Cinema Sins itself, this look at The Bourne Identity does manage to shed some light on problems that one wouldn't tend to notice if they were too busy getting caught up in all of the slick action that Doug Liman included in his only entry in the Bourne series. Interestingly enough, for an assassin who's as skilled and dangerous as Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is built up to be throughout the film's world building process, he makes some key tactical errors that do make his job a lot harder than it had to be.
You would think that a spy who knows German, as well as tons of different methods to kick ass, would know that sleeping on a random park bench will draw some unwanted attention from the local police. Not to mention, when trying to escape a building as armed and guarded as the U.S. Embassy, it's probably a safe bet to assume that the entire building is armed and, well – you know the rest. Though for all of the mistakes that Bourne makes, there's a lot of mistakes the opposition makes that are equally ridiculous.
For instance, the lack of security camera footage, or exterior security cameras, at the American embassy are a good start towards letting your prey get away. Also, the fact that the embassy wasn't as armed and guarded as one would think doesn't help all that much. Not to mention, Chris Cooper's Conklin looks like an even more incompetent boss after Cinema Sins gives him the once over; and even Franka Potente's Marie makes her fair share of slip ups while trying to assist Jason in his quest. While The Bourne Identity is among the weaker entries into the series, it's interesting how many actual errors everyone seems to make during the course of the film's events.
You could even say that the only reason The Bourne Identity is suspenseful, when you set aside the sweet assed action, is that everyone is incompetent enough to evade each other on equal footing, thus causing a lot of general chaos in public, which causes more problems on all sides. This also answers the biggest question of the entire franchise, posed by the events of 2012's The Bourne Legacy. That question being, just how stupid do you have to be to let not one, not two, but four super spy programs go into a tail spin before you realize that you're doing it wrong?
The Bourne Identity is available on Blu Ray, DVD, and Digital HD; while Bourne 5 is set for release on July 29th, 2016.
