The Bourne Legacy
Directed By: Tony
Gilroy
Written By: Tony
and Dan Gilroy, inspired by the character created by Robert Ludlum.
Starring: Jeremy
Renner, Edward Norton, Rachael Weisz, Scott Glenn, and Louis Ozawa Changchien.
Director of Photography: Robert Elswit, Editor: John Gilroy,
Production Designer: Kevin Thompson, Original Music: James Newton Howard
Hope
and change were promised under the Obama administration when they took charge
of the presidency from George W. Bush in 2008. And some things have changed—healthcare,
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell—but others have stayed the same, especially on the foreign
policy side. While President Obama has promoted democracy throughout the world,
it is no secret that in terms of his military strategies he has made even bolder
and unprincipled choices as commander-in-chief, as especially outlined in a New
York Times article earlier this year.
Whether
or not the filmmakers in Hollywood are aware of this, there is a certain
reflection of that spirit in Tony Gilroy’s big Hollywood sequel/spin-off The Bounre Legacy. The original Bounre trilogy with Matt Damon was one
of the hallmarks of Post 9/11 action cinema, which took a patriotic CIA-operative
and turned him into an enemy of the state without reason, and Gilory, who
co-wrote all three films, seeded damning critiques of torture and black ops
militarism of the Bush administration. The end of 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum seemed like the conclusion to this mess both
politically and in terms of storytelling, especially with Damon and director
Paul Greengrass deciding to leave the series.
