Film Review: Jason Bourne
Written by: Victoria Alexander | August 4th, 2016
Bravo to star Damon and director Greengrass. Ethan Hunt and James Bond, how are you going to top the destruction of the Las Vegas Strip?
Just why would the CIA need to create non-emotional, detached killers? The DSM IV-TR gives the prevalence of psychopathy as 3% in males and 1% in females. Just 1 percent of the overall population qualifies as psychopaths; in prison, that number skyrockets to 25 percent. Kevin Dutton, an Oxford psychologist and the author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, believes that psychopathy can actually be advantageous in some careers. The number one career is CEO, followed by lawyer, media and salesperson. Number 5 is surgeon and number 6 is police officer. CIA agent doesn’t make the Top 10 List.
It’s been nine years since we last saw Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) running through the streets and killing all those in his path. We finally see how a man “off the grid” travels around without any I.D. and no money. Bourne takes on any amateur fighter for money. Who should turn up in the crowd but Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles). She has been working to expose the CIA’s secret programs with Christian Dassault (Vinzenz Kiefer). Nicky has read Bourne’s file. The CIA’s top analyst Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) knows there has been a “breech” and within minutes the all-seeing, all-knowing CIA knows it was Nicky and where she is.
Bourne knows the CIA is on to them but he doesn’t tell Nicky to hide her flowing blond hair from being an easy target. If Nicky dies, she deserves it for being stupid. Or is it just me?
So it’s back to the Treadstone program. But without Bourne annoying the agency, CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) has begun even more horrifying programs to reduce people’s freedoms. But first, does Bourne want to read his highly classified file?
Ah ha! Bourne’s father was not merely a functionary – a file pusher – but an integral part of Treadstone!
Knowing what is in Bourne’s file Director Dewey calls his go-to assassin, “Asset” (Vincent Cassel) to remove Bourne. With the Asset, its personal. He endured years of torture and imprisonment because of Bourne.
Since the beautiful Alicia cannot stay struck in the CIA basement looking at action taking place without her, Heather offers to “bring Bourne in.” Coupled with “the Asset”, she goes in the field. To their credit – the screenwriters, director and star – do not set up Heather to meet Bourne at the Aria Hotel & Resort gala event in black tie and couture gown. Alicia never even takes her hair down. Bravo!
If today the CIA wanted to make mind controlled assassins, all they would have to do is set up a Facebook page. There would be no need to trick people into breathing in LSD on subways or hypnotizing innocent college students.
Roseanne Barr keeps talking about the government’s influence in Hollywood. In talking about Hollywood and its “culture of fear of speaking out”, Barr said: “It’s also a big culture of Mind Control. MK ULTRA Mind Control rules in Hollywood.”
So next time you wonder how some actors and actresses keep making lousy film after lousy film and they bomb, blame it on MK ULTRA. Someone likes the star better than you do.
Even though the CIA has mastered the global ability in finding and tracking people, they want more! So they incite a giant internet conglomerate’s CEO, Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), to alter the programming so that every user will be tracked. The program is called Deep Dream and its roll-out will be held in Las Vegas.
On to Las Vegas go the CIA Director, Heather Lee, The Asset, Kallor and Bourne.
Why waste an implosion of The Riviera Hotel & Casino (which closed in May 2015), when Hollywood would pay to crash a SWAT truck right through it after speeding on the Strip destroying everything in its path? What an exciting breathtaking segment! I live in Las Vegas. Damon and Greengrass were given everything they asked Las Vegas for. The famed Strip was closed to traffic from midnight until 5 a.m. for three weeknights for the filming. It was reported that roughly 200 vehicles — 150 cars driven by extras, 50 by stunt drivers — were involved in the scene.
How many extras were assembled and then given the direction to run as a mob through the casino? Imagine handling a few thousand people on a Hollywood set?
Vincent Cassel was in Las Vegas? Oh my God! While Cassel is a major international movie star, who is keeping Cassel from being a major movie star in the U.S.? Do I blame MK ULTRA?
Trust me. Vikander is now an Academy Award winner but still not a household name. “They” (the “They”) will seduce her into believing she could become the next “Julia Roberts” and put her in a series of awful romantic comedies. And she will happily do them.
Damon does not try to obscure his age. In the early scenes when he is pounding big men to knockouts, he is a perfect physical specimen. He looks the best he has ever looked. Not only muscles but sinewy, abs-centric physique. But watch later. Damon definitely took advantage of not having to starve and work out for hours once those earlier scenes were done.
One of this summer’s best movies. Bravo to all involved.
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Member of Las Vegas Film Critics Society: www.lvfcs.org/.
Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and answers every email at victoria.alexander.lv@gmail.com.
Victoria Alexander
Member of Las Vegas Film Critics Society: www.lvfcs.org/. Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, and answers every email at victoria.alexander.lv@gmail.com. For a complete list of Victoria Alexander's movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes go to: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/critic/victoria-alexander/movies. Victoria Alexander contributes to Films in Review (http://www.filmsinreview.com), Film Festival Today (http://filmfestivaltoday.com) and Las Vegas Informer (LVInformer.com).