Starring: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, David Strathairn, Joan Allen, Albert Finney
Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Category: IIA
It would be safe to say that Matt Damon has never struck many people as being the next action hero. Personally, he hasn't come across as much of a hero at all. All his roles so far - award-winning or otherwise - have been more about vulnerability and wits than physical superiority.
Maybe that's why Damon (above) has been able to step so easily into the shoes of Jason Bourne, the amnesiac assassin desperate to regain his past. Damon's boy-next-door image gives Bourne the veneer of helplessness that makes you want to root for him, even when he's coldly killing someone.
It's been five years since The Bourne Identity, adapted from Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name. Since then and the subsequent Bourne Supremacy, Bourne has been able to exact revenge on some of those who've tried to frame him, and lost his girlfriend along the way.
Still on the run and determined to recover his past, Bourne's interest is piqued by a newspaper report alluding to his background and a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) special ops called Blackfriar. Racing to find the source, Bourne is already one step ahead of the CIA agents who are equally determined to keep the lid tightly shut on their dark secret.