Posted on 08/05/2007 3:59:25 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
Perhaps we should have expected this but apparently The Bourne Ultimatum which opened this weekend is chock full of liberal proganda. So who is making this charge? Some vicious rightwinger with an axe to grind against liberal Hollywood producers? Nope. This is the claim of a liberal movie reviewer, Anthony Kaufman, who wrote the following in his Huffington Post blog, Jason Bourne: An Anti-Cheney American Hero?
A stinging rebuke against Cheney-esque black ops and torture tactics, Universal Pictures' The Bourne Ultimatum is more than just a heart-stopping international espionage thriller: It is Hollywood's most direct attack against the Bush Regime since George Clooney's one-two punch of Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana. If those more "sophisticated" dramas preached to the choir about our deteriorating civil liberties and oil-fueled overseas obsessions, the third film in the mega-successful Bourne action franchise offers up a picture of corrupt clandestine leadership for all to see -- where every Matt Damon fan can also enjoy high-powered American government officials as arch-villains committing treasonous and reckless activities without oversight.
In case we have any doubts that The Bourne Ultimatum is a liberal fantasy, Kaufman "reassures" us that it is:
But is the film really a liberal fantasy, where the bad CIA leaders get punished for their penchant for waterboarding, "experimental interrogations," "rendition" and the manipulation of American soldiers' minds with intimidation and humiliation? It sure seems so, as bullish Rumsfeld-like strategies are depicted as inept, while the sensitive, sympathetic touch of Joan Allen's CIA head Pamela Landy is shown as the most effective way to combat renegade forces. If conservatives like to label Tinseltown as leftwing, The Bourne Ultimatum should do little to assuage their concerns.
Thank you for that admission of Hollywood being leftwing, Anthony. At least that is something that most in the media won't admit. Kaufman finishes his review with an admiring look at a scene involving "moral complexity" chock full of nuances that a John Kerry would love:
Then again, perhaps the film allows us to have our blood-soaked cake and eat it, too. Matt Damon's Jason Bourne is a guilt-ridden CIA assassin, who glowers and suffers every time he swiftly strikes a rival down. But as audiences, we still bask in his every murder. Even though Bourne hates being a killing machine, I suspect audiences like it very much. After all, that's the chief source of the movie's thrills. I'd bet director Paul Greengrass (who showed some sensitivity towards depicting the 9/11 terrorists as human beings in United 93) intentionally tried to offer some moral complexity to a scene where Bourne strangles to death an obviously Arab enemy assassin. But how many people will pick up on that? Or will they just whoop and holler with the rising body count?
Most likely, no matter how hard Hollywood tries, most of the audience will overlook the obvious liberal propaganda of The Bourne Ultimatum and "whoop and holler" over the "rising body count" action. Something similar happened with another recent movie, Shooter, starring Mark Wahlberg. It also featured the standard leftwing proganda including a portrayal by Ned Beatty as an absurdly charicatured EVIL rightwing senator who practically drooled bile all over himself. So ridiculous in the propaganda department was Shooter that one of the few good guys in the FBI wore a Che Guevara T-shirt when he was off duty. Therefore be prepared for another leftwing proganda onslaught if you see The Bourne Ultimatum. The physical action, as in Shooter, is good but you will have to put on your political proganda filters in order to keep from groaning out loud.
I was thinking more along the lines of the Charles Bronson movie “Telefon”.
Importantly, ordinary drug-induced hypnosis has a rapid decay rate unless reinforced; that is, the hypnotic training wears off pretty rapidly. However, this can be overcome with a small chip implant that would create a signal “ordering” the person to refresh their training, perhaps with just a small “beep” sound behind his ear.
As far as surgically implanting a bomb inside a person, it could be done surreptitiously by placing them into a coma for several days until healed. Surgeons routinely remove gall bladders through the navel, leaving little visible scar. He might then be “programmed” to set off his own bomb without knowing it. The bomb would only be armed by a code once he had arrived in the destination country.
If that was too much, then a similar method could be used to track him. Simple training that when he saw “Mr Big”, he would activate a signal device inside his body. JDAMs would do the rest.
Importantly, many of these techniques would also be useful in taking down the instigators of violence, many of whom are so far untouched in the WoT, because of their connections, wealth and power. They should have been the first to be targeted-assassinated.
Screwing up? They censored that movie...literally.
I’m so glad someone liked it. I am planning to see it next weekend. I am preparing myself. I watched the first movie again today and am going to watch the 2nd one this week. My husband has agreed to watch the kids for me so I can go on a “girls night out” with some friends to see the 3rd. I am so excited.
Of course its a leftist movie. Matt Damon is in it. This guy grew up next door to Howard Zinn, and has been planning to make a miniseries of his awful People’s History of the United States (with his twin, Affleck). I go to fewer movies now than I ever have, and not because of prices. I go far, far less (two movies in 18 months) because I’m accutely aware of the leftist/liberal crap Hollywood spews at me, and I refuse to reward them for it.
Ditto. Saw it today, too. Dick Cheney never crossed my mind!
Yes I remember. Funny, she played an ACLU-type lawyer on “24” as well. She must have the “look.”
I have only seen the first Bourne movie. I read all three books and loved them. When hubby and I saw the first movie, we were so disappointed that we haven’t the stomach(s) to see the rest.
Matt Damon is nowhere close to what I pictured for Jason Bourne. I won’t say the word that comes to mind when I see Matt Damon. Maybe we’ll watch them on video someday.
Would someone please buy the director a lens with a little longer focal length!
I would LOVE to see them make "Without Remorse" into a movie. It is the best, yet least talked about, book by Clancy. Hands down.
Saw Bourne 3 Last Night. What a great movie, even better than the first 2 AND I didn't detect that it was loaded up with the goo you mentioned.
And, at the end, the bad guys got caught.
I guess now we can look forward to Bourne 4 (Bourne Redemption)
And we now know that Niki looks great as a blond or a brunette :-)
By the time the first Bourne film came out - 2002 - over 20 had gone by from when I read the novel that by the time I saw the movie, I didn’t know if it followed the book at all. I use to like Ludlum’s stuff but for some reason I stopped reading him.
The left makes this mistake all the time. We should not.
Thank you, I stand corrected.
Other than that faux pas, the posting still stands.
Doc, the fun part is springing that tidbit on know-it-all liberals and watching their facial contortions as they try to wrap their little brains around it. Most will tell you that you’re a liar! Bwahaha!
In the book called The Bourne Ultimatum, Jason is fighting Carlos the Jackal.
The movie has absolutely nothing to do with the book of the same name. It's just another continuation of the story of the first two movies, AFAICT.
Too bad. The book was excellent. Would have made a very good movie.
“I have only seen the first Bourne movie. I read all three books and loved them. When hubby and I saw the first movie, we were so disappointed that we haven’t the stomach(s) to see the rest.”
The trick is just to accept the fact that the screenplay is only loosely based on the Bourne novels. Accurately reproducing any large amount of the plot in those novels would just take far more screen time to achieve, and would probably just be confusing to the viewers. Taken on their own merits, I think the Bourne movies are pretty good. I just saw the “Ultimatum” last night and thought it was quite entertaining. Better than the second one, I think, and maybe the first, too.
I also agree with others that the shaky camera work continues to be distracting in many cases.
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