The Films of Paul Greengrass
Resurrected
Open Fire
The One That Got Away
The Fix
The Theory of Flight
The Murder of Stephen Lawrence
Bloody Sunday
The Bourne Supremacy
United 93
The Bourne Ultimatum (August 5/07)
It's certainly worth noting that The Bourne Ultimatum - hot on the heels of such underwhelming actioners as Live Free or Die Hard and Transformers - comes off as nothing less than a breath of fresh air, and while Paul Greengrass' expectedly kinetic camerawork occasionally borders on distracting, the film is generally one of the most exciting and thoroughly compelling thrillers to emerge in quite some time. The bare-bones storyline - which follows Matt Damon's Jason Bourne as he continues to unlock clues surrounding his identity - is essentially just a springboard for a series of genuinely thrilling action sequences, with a pursuit through a busy train station and a chase on Moroccan rooftops the film's obvious highlights (a climactic car chase is rendered almost unintelligible by Greengrass' jittery shenanigans). Damon continues to be the series' most potent weapon, as the actor effectively sustains the viewer's interest even through the movie's sporadically confusing expository passages. And although the structure employed by screenwriters Tony Gilroy and George Nolfi does become awfully repetitive - ie Bourne tracks down a lead and travels to a new country, where he must subsequently escape the clutches of the CIA - there's little doubt that The Bourne Ultimatum's positive attributes (of which there are many) effortlessly outweigh its few negatives.
out of
Green Zone (August 4/10)
Frustratingly uneven, Green Zone follows an American soldier (Matt Damon's Roy Miller) as he attempts to expose a cover-up relating to the search of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq - with his efforts consistently stymied by a host of outside factors (including Greg Kinnear's smarmy Clark Poundstone and Jason Isaacs' tough-as-nails Briggs). There's little doubt that Green Zone gets off to a near disastrous start, as screenwriter Brian Helgeland's decision to emphasize the political aspects of the story holds the viewer at arm's length for much of the film's opening half hour - with the decidedly far-from-enthralling atmosphere persisting right up until Miller's raid on a suspected terrorist's house. It's a riveting and thoroughly exciting sequence that effectively sets the stage for an unexpectedly compelling midsection, and there's little doubt that Damon's impressively authentic performance - ie he really does come off as world-weary, grizzled soldier - plays a substantial role in the film's admittedly abrupt turnabout. Unfortunately, Green Zone demonstrably runs out of steam as it heads into its final stretch - as Greengrass blankets the proceedings in a pervasive darkness that's exacerbated by his notoriously jittery directorial style. The suspense that Greengrass is clearly attempting to generate during the film's third act is consequently non-existent, and it's ultimately difficult to recall a contemporary action flick that wears out its welcome as firmly and as disappointingly as Green Zone.
out of
