The Bourne Ultimatum

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The third and possibly last instalment of Robert Ludlum's Bourne series is with us, and fans can breathe easy as it's a deserving send-off. Jason Bourne (Damon) is getting ever closer to uncovering his real identity and those behind the mysterious operation Blackbrier. Standing in his way are multiple assassins, CIA agents and Noah Vosen (Strathairn), a no-nonsense chief operative given an unusual amount of room to conduct missions as he sees fit. Getting caught up in the plot is inadvisable as names, dates and places come at you a mile a minute, and the best thing to do is remember the really important stuff, sit back and let it roll over you. It's the fastest Bourne yet, with the action skipping between Turin, London, Virginia, Madrid, Tangier and New York, all held together by director du jour Paul Greengrass. Greengrass, returning after directing The Bourne Supremacy and United 93, brings his usual hyper-kinetic camera movements and, with the perpetual tension-riddled score, The Bourne Ultimatum boasts a pace not seen in espionage thrillers before. But the praise must go to the writing team, who somehow are able to write multiple phone conversations with the same anxiety as say, a car chase. The credits say Tony Gilroy was chiefly responsible for the script, but with the streamlined, stripped back, no-filler material, it could well have been written by Hemmingway, a Hemmingway way past his deadline. If one was to pick holes, it's arguable that The Bourne Ultimatum can be a little convenient at times (If Big Brother and God teamed up, they would still have nothing on that CIA surveillance team), but the Bourne franchise deserves a coffee break after making everything three times as hard for themselves in previous rounds. An action movie with brains, this is some serious fun.