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Jason Bourne (DQ)

7/10

Stars: Mark Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel, Riz Ahmed, Julia Stiles, Scott Shepherd, Ato Essandoh, Gregg Henry

Director: Paul Greengrass

They seek him here, they seek him there, but somehow JB is always one step ahead of the pesky pursuing CIA and his former mentors. This fourth trip down memory lane for Damon is one long chase movie, with clever editing keeping the tension steady throughout; it is, however, more a coda than an addition to the series.

Drawn out of cover, where he scrapes a living as a backstreets boxer, Bourne is contacted by rogue CIA operative Nicky Parsons (Chiles); it's a role that represents something of a return to the mainstream for the once star-billed Stiles, although her character lasts barely 40 minutes in. Her executioner is The Asset (Cassel), in the pay of CIA chief Dewey (Jones) and coincidentally the man responsible for the death of Bourne's father (Henry), a CIA man who was trying to keep his son out of the experiment that created worldwide assassins.

But now the CIA is in cahoots with entrepreneur Aaron Kalloor (Ahmed), who has sold them the rights to his new programme - one that can put anyone in the world under surveillance. 'It's started again,' Nicky tells Bourne, 'a new programme, Ironhand, and worse than before.'

That's the core of the skinny plot in a film fuelled entirely by its action scenes: fistfights, firefights, cat-and-mouse pursuits and the inevitable car chase, here hurtling through the streets of Las Vegas - in pursuit of The Asset, who kills people and makes it look like Bourne.

Damon really has little to do except look grim and show up for the action sequences, while Jones puts more inflexion into his dialogue than the rest of the cast put together.

You can usually guarantee that, at least once in these films, an agent will look at an image on a screen and cry 'That's Jason Bourne!'. It happens here too, but only in the trailer, in a scene that must have been deleted from the final print. Though the ending leaves room for yet another sequel, it would seem that the Bourne films, however well made, have now run their course.

David Quinlan

USA 2016. UK Distributor: Universal. Colour by Fotokem.
124 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 29 Jul 2016