The Bourne Identity

Okay, get it out of your system and come back. I'll wait.

...

Back? Good.

This is the first time I've watched The Bourne Identity since attempting — and failing — to read Robert Ludlum's novel on which this film is based.

I picked up the book in a shop in Oxford, England, because that's where you buy crap novels. I tried reading while we were in England in 2008 (and on the flight back), but mostly I couldn't get past how much I hated Robert Ludlum's writing style.

His plotting isn't bad (for mass market fiction, anyway), but the thing I remember most about the book is how important passages were always in italics, and he (or his editor) would do that over and over, sometimes a few times on the same page. I mean, I use italics sometimes, but all the time? If everything is important, then nothing is important, Bob. Some little annoyance like that is enough to get me to stop reading, even on a transatlantic flight.

I gave up on the book, but I still love the films, warts and all. They're paced well, plotted pretty well, and really do a great job of redefining the genre. Ludlum's writing still drives me nuts, but the concept is fine, and in the hands of worthy screenwriters to adapt (Gilroy was here), you've got a hit.

Also, the Bourne films are imbued with this awareness of how action heroes and excess have been intrinsically connected over the years, and how that's not what a self-conscious America wants to watch. This article articulates some of those ideas better than I'll attempt here.

But let's be fair. Films like The Bourne Identity always remind me of what I'll tolerate and what I won't. A spy who can remember everything about his training except, conveniently, his own identity and who trained him? Okay, I'll bite. A spy who can get into fight after fight and still not have a bruise on his face despite mauling dozens of adversaries? Sure, fine. A spy who drives a little, red Eurobeater at whiplash-inducing speeds all over Paris, outrunning authorities, crashing through stuff, and driving down staircases without so much as losing a hubcap? Okay, now I'm just smiling and playing along, like when Grandpa tells the grandchildren a story no adult in the room believes.

The Bourne Identity has some real holes, and I notice more every time I watch them, and I get a little more critical when I see more, but nothing is so annoying that I can't enjoy the film for what it is — the post-9/11 action film that forced a 007 reboot and led us to the best James Bond since Sean Connery.

I've gotten more critical of films as I've gotten a bit older, and having my wife in the room doesn't help, because we spend a lot of time in front of the television making fun of what we're watching. Example: We watch "Jeopardy!" a couple of times a week while eating dinner, and we wait for Alex Trebek to say something in French so we can make fun of him. This is what we do because we're too poor to go out. You should've seen our faces when the category was "Uranus" a few weeks ago.

We're a couple of critics, but when I'm alone, I can get absorbed in The Bourne Identity. When she comes into the room? This.