Jason Bourne (Matt Damon, perfectly impassive as he dispatches men with guns) is having flashes of memory of his slain girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente, seen in flashbacks from the first two films) and of the shadowy "black ops" figures who made him the killing machine he was before his amnesia. Bourne is determined to find out who trained him, who killed Marie and why. He starts with a British reporter (Paddy Considine) in London, who leads him to a CIA station chief (Colin Stinton) in Madrid, in whose office he again encounters Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), the computer-savvy CIA minder who tracked him in the first two films.
Another CIA agent, Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), has also been tracking Bourne through all three films. Now she's assigned to lead a team at the CIA's counter-terrorism unit in Manhattan, where she butts heads with the station chief there, Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), who knows more than he's telling about Bourne and a "black ops" operation called Blackbriar.
Giving away more would deny viewers the thrill of the breakneck chase British director Paul Greengrass (who directed "The Bourne Supremacy," as well as "United 93") stages through three continents - from Moscow to Paris to London to Madrid to Tangier and ultimately in New York City. Greengrass brings his documentarian's eye and handheld camera to give authenticity to chase scenes that are as exciting as anything John Frankenheimer ("Black Sunday," "Ronin") or William Friedkin ("The French Connection") ever made.
Greengrass and his writers (Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi share credit) also plant a seed of thoughtfulness amid the crashes and explosions - to ask what the CIA and the government's War on Terror are doing in our country's name, and whether it's right or even terribly effective. What began as one man's attempt to retrieve his memory becomes, in this final chapter, a morality tale we all should remember.
SEAN P. MEANS can be reached at movies@sltrib.com or 801-257-8602. Send comments about this review to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
