The Bourne Identity (2002)

**The Bourne Identity returns the spy genre to hard-hitting realism with face-paced hand-to-hand combat, clever espionage, and a great lead.**
In the early 2000s, when James Bond was surfing on laser-melted glaciers and fighting diamond-crusted henchmen and Ethan Hunt was dual-weird diving through a flock of doves, The Bourne Identity charted a new path. Doug Liman took Good Will Hunting’s Matt Damon, whose biggest action role to this point had been watching Tom Hanks die to save him in Saving Private Ryan and turn him into a hardcore action hero. But unlike Bond and Mission Impossible, Bourne was a grounded and gritty spy that used skill and ingenuity to overcome the duplicitous intelligence agencies that wanted him dead. The action is more realistic and brutal, with the punches landing harder and pens stabbing deep. The Bourne Identity reinvented the spy genre.

Matt Damon ("Jason Bourne") is fished out off the sea by a passing fishing boat and after having had bullets removed from his back, determines to find out just what happened to him. One slight snag - he has absolutely no idea who he is! Luckily, his rescuer has some skill with a scalpel and aside from the bullets, he removes a small gadget that contains details of a Swiss bank account that ultimately gives him a name, but asks far more questions than it answers. He goes to the US embassy, but that doesn't quite go to plan and in escaping picks up the feisty "Marie" (Franka Potente) and the two have to evade chasing police and would-be assassins as they try to discover the mystery of "Treadstone". It's a gripping, end-to-end spy thriller with short, refined, fight scenes that genuinely engenders suspense and peril. Robert Ludlum's story survives largely intact and Damon, alongside a suitably duplicitous performance from Brian Cox, deliver well.