Bourne Supremacy

Starring: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Karl Urban
Director: Paul Greengrass
Rating: **

Bourne Supremacy follows closely on the footsteps of Bourne Identity. Much like the predecessor, the plot can easily be summed up in a sentence: the amnesiac secret agent (Damon) is still trying to seek out his true identity, still attempting to figure out the continuing questions which his 10 different passports can't answer: Who is he? Who is he hiding from? Is he Jason Bourne?

Bourne's bohemian relationship with the nomadic Marie (Potente) that tingled with an underlying sense of anxiety in Identity finds its doom at the very beginning in Supremacy when a hired Russian assassin (a rather dishy Urban) blows the duo's cover in Goa. While Marie dies, Bourne turns fugitive again and goes on a breathless run across the globe: from Goa to Naples to Berlin to Munich to Moscow with Amsterdam, Washington and New York also thrown in. At each stopover, he manages to speak the native language with great felicity. And gets involved in some breathtaking chases across the city streets, subways, trains and cars which make for a hectic cinematic roller-coaster. Needless to say, the viewers also get to drink in some awesome landscape, particularly the snowy, wintry Moscow.

Where Supremacy differs from Identity is that questions do get answered here eventually. Bourne is an ex-CIA assassin with the secret assassination squad and its Russian counterpart is trying to kill him for a botched job. He has committed two murders in the past, which leave him terribly guilt-ridden. Damon is perfectly brooding, terribly moody and angsty as Bourne which is what makes this hero different from the all-American hunks like Sly Stallone and Arnie Schwarzenegger. And he is also fittingly cool, always a step ahead of his rivals, making the most artful of escapes. In one scene, even as the assassins are out to get him in a Munich house he just fiddles with the gas pipe, puts a magazine to burn in a toaster and walks away from the back door as though nothing extraordinary would transpire in the next few seconds. Bourne is attractive also because he is so unattainable, always behind an invisible wall. No wonder, on getting to know his true identity (David, born 1971) he justs walks away in the crowded NY streets, all alone.