My visitors from New York wanted to see a movie - we compromised, sending my daughter with Amina to see some new Disney fare, and I and my splendid godson, Dante, lit off to see The Bourne Identity, aka Matt Damon with muscles.
Much money was invested in convincing location shots and sets. The opening scene on the Italian trawler was nearly hyperrealistic.
All the more cheated did we feel, then, when the story proper opened with a major plot hole - how does a guy who can't remember who he is, and who has no papers, take a train from Marseilles to Zurich without hassle?
This sort of storytelling only seems more inane juxtaposed with such vivid settings.
Also, it seemed to me that the film had something to say about some of The Company's uses of the word "clean." To the folks at Langley, the word apparently signifies rubbing out with mob-like blatancy any fellow, his landlady, and whoever else might be in a position to, uh, suggest that there is an operation whose entire raison d'etre is (don't tell anybody!) to rub people out.
But then it occured to me that this isn't really about CIA hygiene at all - this CIA is far too accomplished to carry much post 9.11 conviction.
It's more about Hollywood and the RIAA's notion of clean. As such, it has some instructional value.
