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| Why I love … Jason Bourne's frantic chase through Tangier | Why I love … Jason Bourne's frantic chase through Tangier |
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| Reading on mobile? Watch the video here Warning: contains violent scenes | Reading on mobile? Watch the video here Warning: contains violent scenes |
| I came slightly late to the whole Jason Bourne thing. As a child of the 80s I'd been used to action movies, spy movies – cop movies, even – being one long ridiculous set piece; a man with biceps the size of Belgium driving a 16-wheeler into a drug lord's submarine, climbing out of the cabin and, while chomping on jazz-era cigarette holder, declaiming: "Looks like I gave you Das Boot." Or something. | I came slightly late to the whole Jason Bourne thing. As a child of the 80s I'd been used to action movies, spy movies – cop movies, even – being one long ridiculous set piece; a man with biceps the size of Belgium driving a 16-wheeler into a drug lord's submarine, climbing out of the cabin and, while chomping on jazz-era cigarette holder, declaiming: "Looks like I gave you Das Boot." Or something. |
| In the 00s I hadn't seen much to suggest that things had changed: Pierce Brosnan was a James Bond whose main interest was male grooming; the Fast and the Furious and the Franchise was taking off; and even Denzel was equal parts ridiculous to kick-ass. I was done with action, I was gonna watch ballet instead. I wasn't paying close enough attention though, because the Bourne films, in which Matt Damon plays a man who has lost his memory but appears to have the skillset of a best-in-class assassin, had been getting raves all over the place. Directed first by Doug Liman, but then given over to Brit and former news journalist Paul Greengrass, their pitch was simple; all the action you'd come to expect, but with no corn, no irony, and – most importantly of all – as little suspension of disbelief as is possible when you've got a guy taking on the western intelligence establishment with his bare hands. | In the 00s I hadn't seen much to suggest that things had changed: Pierce Brosnan was a James Bond whose main interest was male grooming; the Fast and the Furious and the Franchise was taking off; and even Denzel was equal parts ridiculous to kick-ass. I was done with action, I was gonna watch ballet instead. I wasn't paying close enough attention though, because the Bourne films, in which Matt Damon plays a man who has lost his memory but appears to have the skillset of a best-in-class assassin, had been getting raves all over the place. Directed first by Doug Liman, but then given over to Brit and former news journalist Paul Greengrass, their pitch was simple; all the action you'd come to expect, but with no corn, no irony, and – most importantly of all – as little suspension of disbelief as is possible when you've got a guy taking on the western intelligence establishment with his bare hands. |
| One quiet afternoon in Toronto – I was on holiday and we'd run out of record shops – I went to the multiplex and watched the final part in the trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum. My life changed forever. Well it didn't, but I still enjoyed it like no film I'd seen in years because it was both incredibly visceral and (while I suspect there'll be those of you who disagree with this) unexpectedly believable. And nowhere are those two strengths more apparent than the sequence in which Bourne battles his way through the Moroccan city of Tangier. | One quiet afternoon in Toronto – I was on holiday and we'd run out of record shops – I went to the multiplex and watched the final part in the trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum. My life changed forever. Well it didn't, but I still enjoyed it like no film I'd seen in years because it was both incredibly visceral and (while I suspect there'll be those of you who disagree with this) unexpectedly believable. And nowhere are those two strengths more apparent than the sequence in which Bourne battles his way through the Moroccan city of Tangier. |
| The set-up is this: after a Guardian journalist's phone call is spied on by a secret US government agency (what are the chances, eh?), a chain is set in motion whereby Bourne is chasing information about his past in "Operation Blackbriar". A US operative in possession of said information has fled from Madrid to Tangiers. The spooks know this and have commisioned a hitman to take out the contact before any information can get out. The hitman, Desh, does his job, blowing up the target. The spooks also know that Bourne and his agency buddy, Nicky Parsons, are in town. They tell Desh to take them out too. And so it begins. | The set-up is this: after a Guardian journalist's phone call is spied on by a secret US government agency (what are the chances, eh?), a chain is set in motion whereby Bourne is chasing information about his past in "Operation Blackbriar". A US operative in possession of said information has fled from Madrid to Tangiers. The spooks know this and have commisioned a hitman to take out the contact before any information can get out. The hitman, Desh, does his job, blowing up the target. The spooks also know that Bourne and his agency buddy, Nicky Parsons, are in town. They tell Desh to take them out too. And so it begins. |
| Bourne has seen Desh take out the rogue agent. The pair make eye contact in the street. But as Desh runs off, the police arrive and pursue Bourne. He nicks a dirt bike and a high-speed chase begins through the hubbub of the city's medina. Bourne races up stairwells, bounces along ramparts and escapes the cop cars. As the streets narrow though he has to ditch the bike and heads first for the crowds and then for the rooftops. | Bourne has seen Desh take out the rogue agent. The pair make eye contact in the street. But as Desh runs off, the police arrive and pursue Bourne. He nicks a dirt bike and a high-speed chase begins through the hubbub of the city's medina. Bourne races up stairwells, bounces along ramparts and escapes the cop cars. As the streets narrow though he has to ditch the bike and heads first for the crowds and then for the rooftops. |
| The chase is constructed masterfully by Greengrass, the pace slowly dropping as the tension rises. As Bourne clambers over roofs and jumps across streets, his backdrop a combination of red tiles and blue sky, Desh is stalking Parsons in the shadows of ground level. Suddenly though, just as Bourne looks as if he has been cornered, teetering on the edge of a tall building, he is given a glimpse of Desh from his vantage point. | The chase is constructed masterfully by Greengrass, the pace slowly dropping as the tension rises. As Bourne clambers over roofs and jumps across streets, his backdrop a combination of red tiles and blue sky, Desh is stalking Parsons in the shadows of ground level. Suddenly though, just as Bourne looks as if he has been cornered, teetering on the edge of a tall building, he is given a glimpse of Desh from his vantage point. |
| Desh is in the same building as Parsons; his pistol out, the silencer on. Bourne is two storeys above them on the other side of the road. Bourne jumps, off the building, across the street and – in the only piece of slow motion in the entire sequence – through a window, right into an unsuspecting Desh. I cannot tell you how pumped that 10 seconds of celluloid made me when I first saw it, and the many times I've rewatched it too. It's barely believable that he could do it, but yet, you see it with your eyes and know that he did. And at just the right moment too! | |
| What began as a chase across a city, and then across a few blocks, is now confined to two rooms. John Powell's musical theme (so dramatic I hum it to make the washing-up go faster) is faded out. And where there were bikes and bullets, there is now only hand-to-hand combat. | What began as a chase across a city, and then across a few blocks, is now confined to two rooms. John Powell's musical theme (so dramatic I hum it to make the washing-up go faster) is faded out. And where there were bikes and bullets, there is now only hand-to-hand combat. |
| In Greengrass's first film for the franchise, the Bourne Supremacy, he tried out a new style of fight scene. It was kinetic, but stripped down. The emphasis was not on the prowess of the combatants (there were very few "special" moves), but on their ability to endure, to withstand everything that's thrown against them. It was filmed up close, with shots of concentration and pain on the faces of the combatants intercut with swift montages of blows so fast that they blur. | |
| What was begun in Supremacy is pushed to the limit in Ultimatum. Desh, removed of his gun, hurls Bourne through a glass table. He grabs a candlestick and swings it at Bourne's head and limbs. Bourne picks up a book and turns it first into an impromptu shield and then into a weapon, digging it into Desh's shins and throat. They fight at close quarters, almost in an embrace. Desh shoves Bourne into the shower room, the blows continue to rain down but then the end comes suddenly and swiftly, Bourne adapting a towel into a garrotte and strangling Desh to death. | |
| Only then can you catch your breath. The entire sequence lasts over 10 minutes and there is not a moment when your heart isn't in your mouth. The tension is sustained masterfully, but so is your credulity – and, through that highly potent combination, Jason Bourne restored my faith in action movies. | |
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