A friend of mine recommended I watch the 1988 version of The Bourne Identity, a made for tv movie that has been on my radar ever since seeing the Matt Damon version in 2002. I liked that this film was longer, clocking in at over 3 hours, as it gave more time to expand the turmoil Bourne was going through and develop more secondary characters. The film started off loud, in fact the music was quite loud throughout, but it really hit its stride in the third act and paid off in the end. Flashbacks were handled well (until there were too many), the wide establishing shots were nice (until they got too close to every character for dialogue), but both seemed to go against advice spoken in the movie which was to let the images (memories) come and don’t concentrate. To condense a novel into one movie would be tough without lots of fade out/ins, but that also helped to serve commercial breaks (remember having to watch those?)
1988, 14A, 3h 5m
Studio – Warner Bros.
Cast & Crew
Director Roger Young made this film after The Squeeze (1987 with Michael Keaton) and before Murder in Mississippi (1990 also a tv movie). The movie is based on the 1980 novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum who wrote 2 more novels with Jason Bourne as the main character. Lead star Richard Chamberlain has worked in tv since first appearing in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1959. Perhaps his most well known role was starring as the lead in Dr. Kildare (5 seasons 1961-1966), as well as 3 Musketeers movies (1973-1989) and The Towering Inferno (1974 with Paul Newman). His costar Jaclyn Smith was also well known to tv audiences as she starred in Charlie’s Angels (5 seasons 1976-1981).
Links
Spoilers
(please do not continue reading if you have not seen the movie and do not want to read a spoiler)
The opening sequence of Bourne falling deeper into the water reminded me of the opening title sequence of Skyfall (2012 Daniel Craig), his fist fighting style reminded me of Roger Moore in his James Bond movies (slow punches, dull thud, almost freezes the victim), and he even said his name in the style of Bourne, Jason Bourne. I found the movie to flirt with being lots of fun (the doctor in the beginning appears to have been drinking all night, how about some surgery? or the last 30 minutes with Bourne embracing his spy abilities to get into his house and kill some baddies), but gets away from that with repeating what has happened so far (speaking with Marie, who is clearly demonstrating Stockholm syndrome after getting roughed up by Bourne, then telling him she loves him, the movie doesn’t pass that much time to heal all wounds). I really wanted the movie to explore more of Carlos (make Bourne think he actually was the assassin, who is the real Carlos? who is the real Bourne?), but I did appreciate that this Bourne was more normal human being (he gets hurt, does not always win fights, and gun battles are more natural not expert marksman). I also thought it was an interesting take that it looked like senior citizens were running Bourne’s agency, that Bourne caused more people to die then he actually killed, and that he travelled across Europe and into New York. Not that the travelling part is anything new to movies like this, but seeing a landmark like the Eiffel Tower in the near background for a shootout is always more cinematic then a tv movie like this should be.
