The Bourne Ultimatum
USINFO | 2013-11-29 19:05

The Bourne Ultimatum is a 2007 American-German action and spy film directed by Paul Greengrass loosely based on the Robert Ludlum novel of the same title. The screenplay was written by Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi. The Bourne Ultimatum is the third in the Bourne film series, being preceded by The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004). The fourth movie, The Bourne Legacy, was released in August 2012.

Matt Damon reprises his role as Ludlum's signature character, former CIA assassin and psychogenic amnesiac Jason Bourne. In the film, he continues his search for information about his past before he was part of Operation Treadstone and becomes a target of a similar assassin program.

The Bourne Ultimatum was produced by Universal Pictures and was released on August 3, 2007, in North America, where it grossed $69.3 million in ticket sales in its first weekend of release, making it the highest August opening in the U.S. and Damon's highest-grossing film with him in the lead. The three films have been commercially successful and critically acclaimed and The Bourne Ultimatum won all three of its nominations for Academy Awards, winning the Best Film Editing, the Best Sound Mixing and the Best Sound Editing at the 80th Academy Awards.

Plot
Having been wounded by a gunshot from the Russian assassin Kirill, Jason Bourne evades Moscow police and goes into hiding. Six weeks later, he goes to Paris to inform Martin Kreutz of the death of his sister Marie, who had been Bourne's girlfriend. The Guardian correspondent Simon Ross meets with someone to discuss Bourne and Operation Treadstone. The CIA begin tracking Ross after he mentions "Operation Blackbriar" over a cell phone call. Bourne learns of Ross's investigation of Treadstone and they secretly meet at Waterloo Station. Bourne realizes that the CIA is tracking Ross and helps him evade capture, but Ross deviates from Bourne's instructions and is killed by Blackbriar assassin Paz, on orders from Blackbriar's director Noah Vosen.

Pamela Landy, who had unsuccessfully hunted Bourne six weeks earlier, is brought in to help Vosen. They search Ross's notes and find that Ross's source was Neal Daniels, the CIA station chief in Madrid, who was formerly involved in Treadstone and is involved in Blackbriar. Bourne makes his way to Daniels' Madrid office, but finds it empty. After Bourne incapacitates a CIA team sent by Vosen and Landy, Nicky Parsons, a former Treadstone support technician arrives. She decides to help Bourne and tells him that Daniels has fled to Tangier.

Upon arriving in Tangier, Parsons tries to track Daniels' location but is unable to, finding that Blackbriar "asset" Desh Bouksani has been tasked with killing Daniels. Vosen learns that Parsons logged in to access information about Daniels and sends Desh after Parsons and Bourne, a decision Landy disagrees with. Bourne follows Desh to Daniels, but fails to prevent Daniels' death by a planted bomb. Bourne manages to kill Desh before he can kill Parsons, and subsequently sends Parsons into hiding. Bourne examines the contents of Daniels' charred briefcase and finds the address of the deep cover CIA bureau in New York City where Vosen directs Blackbriar.

Bourne travels to New York City. Landy receives a phone call from Bourne (in a repetition of the final scene of The Bourne Supremacy), which is revealed to be tapped by Vosen. Landy thanks Bourne for the tape he sent her which revealed the corrupt dealings of former Treadstone director Ward Abbott; she also tells him that his real name is David Webb and his birthdate is "4-15-71." Bourne tells Landy to "get some rest" because she "looks tired", which she and Vosen both understand to mean that Bourne is watching her. Vosen intercepts a text to Landy from Bourne of a location to meet up and leaves his office with a team to follow Landy and capture Bourne. Bourne breaks into Vosen's office and steals classified Blackbriar documents. Vosen sends Paz after Bourne, the two finally encountering each other in a car chase which ends with Paz forcing Bourne's car to crash into a concrete barrier. Bourne gets out and holds Paz at gunpoint before sparing his life and continuing on to 415 East 71st Street, memories of which were triggered by the false birthday he was given by Landy. Vosen also figures out Landy's code and warns Dr. Albert Hirsch, who ran Treadstone's behavior modification program, that Bourne is coming.

Landy meets Bourne at the building, where Bourne gives her the Blackbriar files before going inside. Landy starts faxing the files to an unknown receiver, but is found by Vosen as the last page is sent. Bourne encounters Hirsch in an upper level and, with Hirsch's help, remembers that he volunteered for Treadstone. He then states that he is no longer Jason Bourne and flees to the roof from Vosen's pursuing CIA team. Bourne is confronted on the roof by Paz, who asks Bourne why he did not kill him. Bourne asks Paz if he even knows why he is supposed to kill him and repeats the dying words of The Professor—a Treadstone assassin Bourne had killed years earlier—"Look at us. Look at what they make you give." Paz lowers his gun as Bourne runs to jump off the roof, but Vosen appears and shoots at Bourne as he leaps into the East River below. Some time later, Parsons watches a television news broadcast about the exposure of Operation Blackbriar, the arrests of Hirsch and Vosen, a criminal investigation of CIA director Ezra Kramer, and David Webb, a.k.a. Jason Bourne, who was reportedly shot and fell into the East River. Upon hearing that his body has not been found after a three-day search, Parsons smiles. Bourne is shown swimming away underwater after his fall.

Reception
The Bourne Ultimatum earned $69,283,690 during its opening weekend at the box office, breaking a record previously held by Rush Hour 2 (2001) for the highest grossing August opening.

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film had an overall approval rating of 94% based on 234 reviews and an average score of 8/10, higher than either predecessor. The site's consensus describes the film as "The Bourne Ultimatum is an intelligent, finely tuned non-stop thrill ride. Another strong performance from Matt Damon and sharp camerawork from Paul Greengrass make this the finest installment of the Bourne trilogy," At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 85 based on 38 reviews, again higher than the first two films. At the end of its theatrical release, the film grossed at total of $227,471,070 in the U.S. and $215,353,068 in foreign markets for a worldwide total of $442,824,138, making it the highest grossing film in the series.

Like its predecessor, The Bourne Supremacy, the film was criticized for its use of "shaky camera" work, as Richard Corliss of Time magazine, in an otherwise positive review, wondered "why, in the chat scenes, the camera is afflicted with Parkinson's? The film frame trembles, obscures the speaker with the listener's shoulder, annoys viewers and distracts them from the content of the scene."

In the British press, the inclusion of a fictional journalist from the real British paper The Guardian and scenes set in the United Kingdom (particularly Waterloo railway station) were commented upon. In particular, that newspaper's reviewer joked that "dodging bullets from a CIA sniper... is the sort of thing which happens to us Guardian journalists all the time."

The film was also well received in the hacker subculture, as it showed actual real-world applications such as the Bourne-again shell and Nmap, unlike many other films featuring hacking scenes (such as Hackers).

Academy Awards
The film won in all three categories in which it was nominated, giving it the second highest number of awards at the 80th Academy Awards (behind No Country for Old Men):
Christopher Rouse for Best Film Editing
Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis for Best Sound Mixing
Karen M. Baker and Per Hallberg for Best Sound Editing

Other awards
ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Film of the Year, 2008

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