Anniversary of The Bourne Ultimatum

On July 25, 2007, Paul Greengrass' film "The Bourne Ultimatum" premiered in Los Angeles. Less than a month later, the film was released on the screens of Russian cinemas. The enviable efficiency of Russian film distribution, unlike other American, and not only American, film masterpieces. Clearly shows the "general line" of the leadership of Russian culture.

"The Bourne Ultimatum" is the third part of the "Borniana" or the second sequel to Doug Liman's "The Bourne Identity" (2002). 9 years after "The Bourne Ultimatum" the fifth, the last to date, film of "Borniana" was filmed. Of all five films of the franchise, only "The Bourne Ultimatum" was awarded an Oscar, moreover, three awards at once. True, they all concerned technical nominations. "The Bourne Ultimatum" has not received other prestigious film awards either in America or abroad.

Hundreds of reviews from film critics were devoted to Paul Greengrass' film "The Bourne Ultimatum". Basically, these reviews were laudatory. However, nothing surprising: the budget of the picture was 110 million dollars. It is clear that there were funds for the financial motivation of film critics. Even the respected Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars. True, in his review, he simply retold the plot of the picture, without noting any of its outstanding merits.

However, film critics, who occupy a position that allows them not to depend on financial motivation from film distributors, gave the film by Paul Greengrass not at all flattering assessments. Thus, the famous American writer Stephen Hunter (based on his novel "Point of Impact", Antoine Fuqua in 2007 made the film "Shooter" with Mark Wahlberg in the title role) published a devastating review of "The Bourne Ultimatum" on the pages of the most influential newspaper in the United States The Washington Post which started with these words:

"It's not a movie; it's a trip through a gun barrel at the head of a cloud of exploding gas, and you end up splattered against a wall, then sliding into the dust with the sound of the drums ringing in your head for hours."

There were also many Russian film critics who praised the film by Paul Greengrass. However, the most independent and authoritative critics allowed themselves to remain within the boundaries of common sense. Thus, Yevgeny Nefyodov, in a review dated August 23, 2007, noted:

"Paul Greengrass, without a doubt, jumped over his head. Surpassed himself. But – only in the part concerning the reckless unfolding of events, giving the action a rapid and non-stop (on the verge of complete chaos!) character....Unfortunately, "The Bourne Ultimatum" is slightly deprived of other than genre advantages."

Probably the most devastating review was devoted to the film by Paul Greengrass "The Bourne Ultimatum" by another famous Russian film critic Alex Exler on August 27, 2007. After listing a dozen logical absurdities contained in this film, Exler gave this conclusion:

"Well, after all these swearing, the question arises: is the movie really so bad and there's nothing to watch in it at all? No, they obviously worked with the spectacular part, and this somewhat brightens up the rest of the ugliness....Apparently, this was quite enough for the majority of viewers and reviewers, and they were able to get rid of the idiocy of the script, the utter bleakness and cardboard of the characters, and, well, from the shaking of the operator."

Shooting with a shaking camera, apparently, was specially applied to hide the obvious flaws of the script.

But the most curious thing is that Exler's thesis about the "idiocy of the script" of the film "The Bourne Ultimatum" was confirmed by none other than... Matt Damon himself. However, he did it 4 years after the release of the film on the screens. Moreover, he did not just confirm this thesis, but sued the author of the script Tony Gilroy. The essence of his accusations, made in 2011, boiled down to the fact that Gilroy, who received a very serious advance from the Universal film company to develop a high-quality script, limited himself to an unprocessed sketch. And he, "good will Damon", had to play the main role in the film according to a completely "unreadable" (Damon found such a synonym for the word "idiotic") script.

During the litigation, it was revealed that, indeed, Tony Gilroy, head writer of the earlier Bourne films, was hired by the studio to write the screenplay for The Bourne Ultimatum. However, having written a draft (perhaps, as they say, "on the knee"), Tony Gilroy switched to work on the film "Michael Clayton", in which he acted as a screenwriter and director. And Universal gave the green light to a film based on a draft. Paul Greengrass, apparently, did not even delve into the script, retaining in the film all the absurdities that are noticeable to any adequate viewer.

However, serious marketing efforts, confirmed by a huge number of complimentary reviews from film critics, have had their effect. The film grossed $440 million at the box office. Of these, Paul Greengrass's film collected $5.5 million at the Russian box office. I foresee the reaction from many readers: "So what?" Let me explain what exactly caused my increased attention to the success of the film "The Bourne Ultimatum" in the Russian film distribution. The fact is that almost simultaneously with the film by Paul Greengrass, only a month earlier, the German film masterpiece by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck "The Lives of Others" was released on the screens of Russian cinemas. (By the way, 16 months after the world premiere!) The film, which collected the highest awards of almost all prestigious film festivals, received the highest ratings from moviegoers and authoritative film critics. So, this masterpiece, in the Russian box office, earned less than 300 thousand dollars. So the question that torments me in connection with this is: is such a colossal disproportion between the boxing offices of Greengrass and Donnersmarck films the result of a special commitment to shit, bordering on dementia, of a significant part of Russian moviegoers? Or is it a consequence of a special policy of Russian film distribution aimed at debilitating the population? The explanation that "The Lives of Others" has a rather difficult to perceive genre of "political drama" in contrast to the action movie "The Bourne Ultimatum" does not work in this case. The German masterpiece has a worldwide box office-to-budget ratio of 35:1, while "The Bourne Ultimatum" has only 4:1.

Be that as it may, 71% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave "The Bourne Ultimatum" a score of 8 to 10. Based on this score and the above, FilmGourmand's rating of Paul Greengrass's "The Bourne Ultimatum" was 7,951, which allowed it to enter in the Golden Thousand, in which it took 776th Rank.