Fight Clip Club: Bourne Ultimatum

Hold that camera still, jeez! I wanna see the fight.

I know you’ve been listening to me complain frequently about the janky camerawork in the Bourne movies, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the ubiquitousness of the fight style that’s uniquely Bourne and that other action movies since these have tried to emulate it and have failed. Matt Damon is an excellent performer of fights and the source material may be kinda fluffy, but it’s fun fluff. Fun exciting spycraft fluff, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I think, too, that the only reason I don’t like these fights as much as, say, a Bond or a John Wick sequence is just plainly the shaky jumpy cam way they’re shot. If I can manage to look through the way-too-many cuts and jumpy angles to the actual choreography, I recognize these fight sequences as quite high level stuff, and excellently executed by the performers. 

Wanna see what I mean? Here’s one of the more famous fights in the Bourne franchise, after the paywall. Meet me on the other side, and we’ll talk about it.