The Bourne Identity is a 2002 movie based on the book of the same name by Robert Ludlum. The film is loosely based on the novel and adapted by Tony Gilroy . In 2004, The Bourne Identity was followed with a sequel titled The Bourne Supremacy.

Cast

• Jason Bourne - Matt Damon
• Marie Helena Kreutz - Franka Potente
• Alexander Conklin - Chris Cooper
• Ward Abbott - Brian Cox
• Nicky - Julia Stiles
• The Professor - Clive Owen
• Nykwana Wombosi - Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
• Danny Zorn - Gabriel Mann

Crew

• Directed by: Doug Liman
• Written by: Robert Ludlum
• Screenplay by: Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron
• Produced by: Robert Ludlum and Frank Marshall

Plot

For the plot of the novel see The Bourne Identity.

In addition to updating the politics and technology the movie streamlines the plot of the novel, chiefly by dropping the business with Carlos and leaving out the final plot twist.

The film begins finding Jason Bourne floating in the Mediterranean Sea with several bullet wounds. He is picked up by a fishing ship and nursed back to health only the man they picked up has no idea who he is and knows nothing of his past. A member of the ship when treating Bourne's wounds finds a message surgically embedded in Bourne's hip, containing details of a Swiss bank account. When the ship reaches port, Bourne travels to Zurich to learn about his past hopefully by whatever is in this bank account. During his travels he begins to notice certain characteristics about himself, including the use of martial arts when two Swiss cops try to kick Bourne out of a park for sleeping on a park bench. The bank account contains numerous passports, specifically two titled: "Jason Charles Bourne" and "John Michael Kane". It also contains numerous bills of a variety of different currencies and a gun. Bourne takes everything in the container leaving the gun, but when leaving is flagged by an informant of a black ops arm of the CIA called Treadstone, who is trying to track and apprehend or kill Jason. After leaving the bank, Jason travels to the U.S. Embassy in Zurich where security guards attempt to apprehend him. After Bourne's escape he meets Marie Helena Kreutz (Marie St. Jacques in the novel) and pays her to drive him to Paris where Bourne can find more pieces to his identity. In Paris, Bourne quickly learns of his involvement with an assassination plot to murder Nykwana Wombosi, which was masterminded by Treadstone and himself under the name of "John Michael Kane".

In the end, Bourne learns that he was one of the top agents working for Treadstone and that he failed to assassinate Wombosi on his private yacht because he'd suddenly developed a conscience that ended with Bourne getting shot in the back and left for dead, with amnesia in the middle of the Mediterranenan Sea.

The movie ends with Bourne and Marie in hiding, technically still on the run from Treadstone, which unbeknownst to Bourne was shutdown by Ward Abbott after the numerous problems with Bourne and Treadstone's former leader Alexander Conklin. Before ending, Bourne warns his former employers of serious consequences if they disturb him or Marie Kreutz again.

This movie features an unpopular though useful Chinese martials arts technique known as Chin Na. Which literally means technique to catch and grab.

Parody

There was also a film parody called "The Bourne Identity Crisis" in 2003, about an amnesiac who forgets that he's gay, and manages to convince himself that he is an assassin.

External links

• Official Movie Web site