May 6, 2002

The Bourne Identity
(Universal) Rated R
Release Date - June 14, 2002

Of course, there are, as ever, some things that I wish were clearer or somehow resolved differently.  Some questions are left unanswered, such as why Damon’s character seems to have a dislike of guns or why Franka Potente’s car cannot be more effectively tracked after the bad guys have her license plate number.  It’s a little distracting to have Julia Stiles playing a near cameo… she is, after all, Julia Stiles.  And if I were the studio, I would move the film again, because to me, it feels like a real fall film… sometime mid-October. 

But The Bourne Identity is a quality film that works and it fulfills many of the cinematic wishes that critics and audiences regularly complain are not being fulfilled by studio films.  And if any journalist wants to write about the bumps and bruises suffered along the road, more power to them.  But to attack a film before seeing it, taking sides on the kind of petty studio vs. director stuff that happens on virtually every film… that sucks.  Especially when you are wrong.