In his third outing as the amnesiac agent Jason Bourne, Matt Damon maintains the low-drag efficiency he established in the first two installments - David Denby in the New Yorker even compares him to a bullet - as he relentlessly backtracks the genesis of his former secret identity to its source. As appropriate for the endcap to an informal trilogy, the knobs are all ratcheted up - chases are notably extended, nominal allies within the CIA themselves are put at risk, and Bourne’s counterespionage chops put to ever greater challenges. Yet somewhere in the process, we lose some of the balance that was previously maintained between cat and mouse, and thus some of the critical tension that came from it. Before we get to that, however, let’s revisit how we got to this point in the story.

This new Bourne series has always been so far removed from Robert Ludlum’s rather more plodding source material that at least we are saved from another rehash of the book-vs-movie debate. Indeed, practically from the time Bourne steps off the fishing boat in the first movie, we separate paths with only occasional name dropping (Marie, Treadstone) still tying it to its namesake. To their credit, the movies have made the most of this divergence, updating the somewhat hoary spygame mechanics, tightening up the timeframe, and making the main characters more sympathetic. The original Bourne was so chameleonlike as to deflect any easy affinity - for what do we have in common with someone who is always pretending to be someone else, like Christopher Chance in The Human Target? - while Marie was a Canadian doctor of economics who started out a hostage and later provides complex financial assistance. The writers also eliminate the primary throughline of the original trilogy dealing with Carlos the Jackal in favor of turning Treadstone into the enemy instead of ally, followed in time by its paymasters at the CIA. This not only simplifies the goals of Bourne tremendously but makes the struggle to regain his identity, and thereby his moral sense, the primary conflict instead of just an interim step. And so we journey from a numbered bank account in Zurich, to Paris, Berlin, and Moscow before we rejoin a still very battered Bourne in the opening moments of Ultimatum.

We find him literally moments later on the streets of Moscow, after confessing the murder of the Neskis to their daughter at the original ending for The Bourne Supremacy (the flashforward scene between Bourne and Pamela Landy in NYC was added later after test screenings thought the ending in Moscow too much of a downer). And naturally, a chase scene develops. And shortly, another. The manic pace and tension are sustained through this rapid juxtaposition of “how will he get out of this one?” setpieces, in an escalating race against the higher-ups at the CIA and sister agencies who are revealed to have greater things to fear than Bourne himself. And intercut into Bourne’s globetrotting pursuit of clues to his past we also get sinister office politics betwixt an emboldened post-9/11 intelligence bureaucracy - that is, when the warring bosses aren’t doing what they do best, yelling at rooms full of attractive geeks to do impossible things with their computers right now. At least movie bosses have that trait in common with their real-world counterparts.

Alas, some of the investigative onion peeling that has distinguished the series from formula spy action pieces is diminished in this exchange for longer and more elaborate chases. One footchase in Tangiers between Nicky, Bourne, and a CIA ‘asset’/assassin named Desh lacked in variation and lasted well beyond my patience (and this from someone who had no complaints about the highway scene from Matrix Reloaded). Plus, the progress Bourne is able to make occurs as much from luck (a British journalist happens to publish about a source on both him and Operation Blackbriar, with the motivation for disclosure never mentioned; Nicky happens to have been assigned to work with that source, Daniels) than skill on his part. Moreover, although we are still treated to Bourne’s jury-rigging ingenuity (an oscillating fan + flashlight = diversion), the attempt to make Nicky useful introduces some dubious networking insofar as she is simply able to log in remotely to schedule her own meet with Desh…a far cry from the bottom-up detective work Bourne has achieved thus far via payphones and Net cafés. As the series of chases finally leads towards the final showdown with the architect of his reprogramming at the Treadstone training center - conveniently not far away from the main HQ in NYC - it strains credulity that Bourne would respond to Landy’s tip by simply barreling straight into the building with no apparent plan other than to corner anyone conveniently still stationed there to provide crucial exposition. And we have the last clichéd moment on the building’s roof, cornered by a fellow agent who he left to live after a crippling crash who will now suddenly be convinced not to take a shot by the cryptic statements provided by a dangerous target.

These quibbles are to be expected in watching any action movie, and really wouldn’t even had caught my attention had the previous two movies not been so successful in grounding the action and making the characters more three-dimensional and believable than the normal stereotypes cluttering the genre. And watching the movie, I was truly caught up in the thrill of the chase, carried along by the pounding soundtrack again provided by John Powell, up to the expected reprise of Moby’s “Extreme Ways” over the closing credits (tweaked a bit, notably). But afterwards, these flaws as compared to its predecessors, and the higher expectations raised because of them, left me a little disappointed much as I was with Ratatouille. That is, not because the movie wasn’t good, but simply because it wasn’t quite as great as I hoped.

Apart from the plotting, the other main detraction was, ironically, one of the film’s main selling points - the superlative competency Bourne displayed at the train station in dismantling the op being run against his journalist contact. The unerring stage management of complex counterintelligence against multiple enemies seemingly on the fly - with an uncooperative civilian, no less - raises him to a level that we might expect from movies but compromises the illusion in the process. Just as John McClane was established as a force of nature in his fourth movie, Live Free and Die Hard, where even the other characters around him have begun to recognize and comment on his apparent plot karma, in Ultimatum Bourne is increasingly presented as a character that is untrackable, indeed unbeatable, and in so doing some of the tension associated with any predicament he is placed within leaches away. James Bond long ago lost any fear of bullets, or even a sprained ankle, while Bourne has at least suffered the effects of his encounters. But while the first movie first introduced us to his skills as he recovered them, and the second expanded on them as he began to unravel the details of his earliest mission, by the third we have come to expect that he cannot be foiled and thus he begins to turn from character into caricature. The same complaint can be lodged at his inhuman ability to survive multiple car crashes with little more than a limp - again, long a staple of the action hero (at least, compared to Arnold in Commando, he used a seatbelt) but a diminishment of his “great but not super” profile. Only by truly believing a person can fail will we truly thrill at their success.

The hinting at a romance with Nicky, along with the relative paucity of what Bourne is revealed to truly remember - all his missions as Bourne, his training to become Bourne, his life before as David Webb? - leave enough unanswered questions to suggest that the movie is both trying to come full circle and set the stage for future adventures of The Bourne Thingy. Yet this possibility is troubled not only by Matt Damon’s comments on the subject, but by the restoration of Bourne/Webb’s moral sense. He is no longer a programmable weapon, an ‘asset’ of shadowy government forces acting in murky ‘best interests,’ but a person with remorse for past acts of violence and growing aversion to it. He is clearly troubled after his brutal subdual of Desh, and refrains from shooting pursuing agents in car chases in each of the last two movies, just as he told Abbott that he wouldn’t kill “because she [Marie] wouldn’t want me to.” And if he truly has regained his sense of self, or at least those memories that were torturing him in fragments, then we are at a loss at to what his motivations could be in a future installment.

If we follow Manohla Dargis of the LA Times in conceiving the first movie being about identity, and the second about morality, we can approach the third as more a meditation on responsibility. Having already regained his moral compass by the end of Supremacy (notably contrasted with the self-serving actions of Conklin, Abbott, and the Russian oil baron) , with Ultimatum we have a series of characters grappling with the justification for their actions, particularly those within the intelligence community. Bourne himself has already opted out, and only wants to understand what was done to him before disappearing. He talks of seeing the faces of those he has killed, and when he is at last confronted with the truth of his volunteering for the Treadstone program, he must in turn take responsibility for all that came afterward. The film makes several allusions - through repeated flashbacks, and the dossier that Landy skims - that the reprogramming of David Webb to Jason Bourne was not without resistance, and numerous ‘experimental interrogation’ methods are used to subvert him such as sleep deprivation and waterboarding. The apex moment is when Webb must kill a hooded prisoner to commit himself fully to the program, and Dr. Hirsch comments once he does so that “you are no longer David Webb,” suggesting that the reprogramming had not proceeded so far that Bourne would no longer be aware of his prior identity. This leaves Webb/Bourne somewhat more in the gray as to how far he pushed himself vs how much he was manipulated in committing to Treadstone. He volunteered, evidently as an Army Captain, in a valiant effort “to save American lives” at the cost of total obedience, a common predicament of military service. His resistance is lessened to violating basic codes of conduct, such as executing an anonymous person purely at the say-so of an authority figure - a concept seen in indoctrination trials as varied as the Mafia, the Milgram Experiment, and the final step of other military weed-out courses in movies like Shiri and Spartan. After that, even if you were coerced, your guilt will tie you closer to the group, since you can no longer see a way of turning back. If we add in the details suggested in the closing moments of the movie, Bourne-now-Webb will have recalled that he not only underwent this reprogramming, but went on to commit multiple murders, including of American citizens. As contrasted with his initial rejection of this history when he first puzzles out the clues in Identity while reading about the assassination of Mombosi, he has sought out the worst of his actions and does not shy from responsibility for them.

Likewise, we have multiple figures within the CIA who must make their own reassessments of the costs of their choices. Previously we’ve seen Conklin and Danny Tripp murdered out of expediency by Abbott, and Abbott killing himself rather than face the consequences of his financial escapades in the Neski scandal. Deputy Director Vosen and Director Kramer are likewise focused on covering up the extent of their activities under the umbrella of Operation Blackbriar, which like certain provisions familiar to citizens of the US and UK, eliminates the checks and balances of pre-terrorist times and gives startling free reign to shadowy forces without oversight. The notion of a single word uttered into a telephone triggering an alert across the globe, resulting in the unfettered surveillance and eventual assassination of a journalist on British soil by CIA agents is shocking, but given what is already known about Project ECHELON, what has been declassified of the CIA’s more underhanded past initiatives, and what is not known about the extent of current foreign espionage committed ‘in the black’ and in the name of anti-terrorism, this is merely a dark mirror of present times. Vosen and Kramer never shrink from this, indeed Vosen shows no hesitation at marking Nicky for death at the mere suggestion of her being implicated in Bourne’s escape, while Kramer remarks about how they’ve groomed Landy to take the fall should anything untoward come to light.

Nicky and Pamela Landy, however, both display allegiance to more than their own careers. Nicky’s motivations are suggested as more personal in nature - she refers to a possible romance, or at least unrequited interest, between Nicky and Bourne when she acted as his handler before the boat accident. Apart from some extended staring (which sadly seems to be about as much direction as Julia Stiles is given at times), a visual parallel to Marie when she dyes her hair, and a quirky half-smile at the film’s ending, nothing more is made of this. But it could help explain how she would choose when confronted in Daniels’ office to provide the non-duress codeword and thereafter aid Bourne in his search. Landy is a more complex character, devoted to protecting the agency’s interests (such as unraveling the failed Neski op in Supremacy) while remaining open to the prospect of Bourne being innocent. As she observes Vosen’s disregard for CIA personnel, and reads more into the extent of Treadstone’s and Blackbriar’s activities, she begins to act contrary to her own interests in service of an ideal. While everyone else is really out for themselves, Landy declares “this isn’t what I signed up for” and effectively torpedoes her own career, first by communicating with a targeted free agent (Bourne) and then sending confidential materials outside the agency to implicate Vosen/Kramer. This self-sacrifice is perhaps forestalled by the ensuing scandal and investigation, which brings her to testify before a closed session of Congress, but nevertheless she acts to right injustices at great personal risk. In other words, she takes responsibility for unearthing precisely those things for which, still unbeknowst to her, Vosen/Kramer had intended her to take the fall and thus protect themselves.

A possible fourth installment, troubled as it may be for motivation, is certainly not to be dismissed out of hand. Matt Damon reportedly at first disliked the idea, but has since allowed that, with the right script and Paul Greengrass returning to direct, he would consider another. With Ultimatum putting up the largest August box office opening ever, the studio will probably be on the prowl. And Eric Van Lustbader has already churned out two workmanlike serials to follow Ludlum’s original trilogy, titled The Bourne Legacy and The Bourne Betrayal. Even Denby gets in on the act, offering his own suggested titles, such as “The Bourne Arpeggio, in which Bourne, now a violist, prevents the assassination of a Russian dissenter at the reopening of Alice Tully Hall.” While we wait, some other alternatives:

The nobility of intelligence service being somewhat tarnished by recent biopics like Breach (also starring Chris Cooper) and the exposé of post-Cold War shenanigans in Ronin and Ultimatum, some pro-agency drama is provided in the BBC’s MI-5 aka “Spooks” series. I’ve only just finished the pilot, wherein conflicted lead agent Matthew Macfayden, last seen alongside Keira Knightley as Mr. Darcy, rushes about to track down a pro-life extremist expatriate with a somewhat dodgy Southern accent targeting family planning doctors with IRA-supplied bombs about the country. In keeping with the precinct formula for character angst as well as jargon-filled action, Macfayden also struggles with the nature of being a clandestine agent as he romances a chef under one of his assumed identities and has to deal with a life built on lies, while a fellow agent Zoe struggles with mundane matters like avoiding an amorous landlord. The tradecraft is rather downmarket as you’d expect from a BBC-budgeted production, with thrilling sequences like…trying to lure a cat back in the house before placing bugs in clock radios and a smoke detector. Still, the moral quandaries of life in the secretive world, and realistic depictions of a country even further along the surveillance curve towards the panopticon than our own, all provide for some compelling viewing.

For lighter fare, we have distraction in the form of another agent going through a self-appraisal and turning from spy to do-gooder, this time in the new USA series Burn Notice. Although I initially expected a more gritty setting, something more along the lines of John Doe or The Pretender (both, incidentally, series about supremely talented individuals struggling to discover their identity), I was pleasantly surprised that instead the show is closer in spirit to MacGyver. Like Jason Bourne, Michael Westen is an ex-operative, although unlike MacGyver not by choice. Rather than amnesia, Westen has been struck with a ‘burn notice,’ a trade term for a blacklisting by the intelligence community that prevents him from pursuing his chosen career. For Westen is a freelancer, without a particular stake in his work other than pride and profit. Now stuck in Miami without access to his funds or any outside contacts, and with no details on why or by whom he was burned, he must piece together what happened by guile and the few connections he can still leverage. Angling the show into more sitcom territory, he also happens to be estranged from his family - a chain-smoking, manipulative mother who just wants the illusion of a happy family, and a combative gambling-addicted brother - plus quickly hooks up with an ex-IRA ex-girlfriend (played with great enthusiasm and pluck by “where’s she been?” Gabrielle Anwar) and a retired FBI buddy (played by the one and only Bruce Campbell) who lives on the largesse of a series of divorcee girlfriends. He merits his own surveillance team, initially provided by the FBI. And to top it off, since his accounts are frozen and he can’t leave town, to pay the bills he has to find work in Miami.

Concordantly, the writers have managed to come up with a series of odd jobs based around Westen doing favors for friends, family, and strangers in return for cold cash and a new outlook on the things that matter. Each job inevitably requires that he employ his formidable skills as a freelance espionage agent - concocting elaborate surveillance routines, booby-trapping, con games, and the occasional fisticuffs. And better yet, since he’s no longer on a government expense account, all of these have to be done on a strict budget, which often means a trip to the hardware store and some quality time with a soldering iron. His jury-rigging ingenuity (sound familiar?), combined with a nicely deadpan voiceover imparting lessons from the trade, all in the service of helping those who cannot turn to normal authorities for help are a great throwback to 80’s shows like MacGyver and the A-Team, both of which featured former special-ops doing good deeds with the materials at hand. Many of the problems are more technological than MacGyver’s, which often hinged more on applied science, but the bricolage work ethic is the same. As a further homage, even the ending of the show’s opening theme sounds similar to the ending of the classic MacGyver theme.

Another recurring motif I found intriguing is the repeated use of favors as a sort of barter economy among the main characters. Westen often starts off a job as a favor to a landlord, friend, his family, etc. and then in the course of an episode must seek assistance from a colleague, again often in return for a favor. In the case of his own friends and family, the recompense for these favors is often of a social or emotional nature, e.g. his mother will help him if he will visit his father’s grave, or his ex Fiona requires that they finally have a conversation about their relationship. This is all in keeping with the conceit of a credit-free existence, which also aids in countersurveillance (much as the older John Connor had moved to living “off the grid” as of Terminator 3 to help avoid detection by SkyNet), and evokes comparison to a lesser-known 80’s “helps those in need” loner, Stingray, who each episode would call in a previous favor to help the current victim. In all, Burn Notice has been a pleasant surprise, and a great antidote to the weightier concerns raised by the excesses of surveillance and government intrusion portrayed in Ultimatum.