City of God

January 23, 2003

Brazilian film about life in the slums - a bit violent - but also unexpectedly funny - and a great movie!

Definitely worth seeing - you will love it!


In Portuguese with subtitles

Posted by nlvp at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)

The Bourne Identity

January 12, 2003

While it's not the worlds greatest action flick, it certainly fits the bill when stuck in coach on a transatlatic flight!

A man is found by a French fishing vessle, he is barely alive, floating unconscious, with two bullets in his back. He cannot remember his name, his home, his family, but he has a bank account number stitched into his thigh. Then people start trying to kill him.


Not a bad premise for an adventure story I'll grant you, and as things progress, it gets quite exciting to see the Americans try to get rid of what they consider to be a rogue agent. We never fully understand why they want to get rid of him - they never seek to make contact, they just go for him with everything they've got (which is disappointingly little), but that is largely irrelevant in a film that really hinges on Bourne's ability to overcome any obstacle that is put in his path.


Matt Damon is somewhat convincing (although a little too young-looking) in the role, and plays the amnesia-riddled superman with a certain degree of success. The films winds its way convincingly through its chase scenario to the inevitable resolution when Bourne has to confront who/what he was - it's all very predictable, but enjoyable nevertheless.


Potential issues with the film are the fact that there is no great discovery at the end - the buildup implies a conspiracy about to be unveiled, and what is revealed left me wanting more, as you're left wondering what all the fuss was about in the first place. Julia Stiles is woefully underused, appearing only behind a desk, and almost not interacting with any of the other characters in the film.


Whilst I can find little to criticise about the film (other than a lack of ambition), I find it hard to dig up reasons to tell anyone to go see it - it's lacking in content and substance, and so the sustained pace and fun scenes are wasted on a story that has too little substance for a film, and therefore ends up stretched too thin. At the end, I was left wondering what all the fuss had been about.