Matt Damon sounding hoarse, with bags under his eyes. Carrying automatic weapons. The shot is captured by a relentlessly bobbing handheld camera. It’s the the kind of shot that makes you relentlessly nauseous. In one scene, a plot pointer it seems, Greg Kinnear is having a hissy, and holding a Very Big Phone, which must link up with either a satellite or the ghost of William Casey.
Paul Greengrass directed this epic, which seems as though it could have been the latest installment of the Bourne series, if that franchise hadn’t run out of steam. This will do. At least Damon has a memory in this outing, which means he has at least a partial understanding of what’s happening, even if we don’t. He looks very earnest, and very deadly, a feature-film version of Kiefer Sutherland’s “24″ persona, but with certain ethical quirks, such as peculiar objection to random torture.
