A man (Damon) is found floating in the Mediterranean with two bullets in his back, the number of a Swiss bank account and absolutely no memory of who he is. On tracking down the account's contents he finds himself to be Jason Bourne who seems to have a number of identities as well as a gun and rather a lot of money. After being chased and realizing he has some pretty nifty martial art skills he begins to suspect he is rather more than your average guy on the street so pays struggling Marie (Franka Potente) to drive him to Paris. Meanwhile CIA bigwigs Ted Conklin (Cooper) and Ward Abbott (Cox) are hot on his trail trying to terminate him for a failed mission and activating all agents in Europe to do so.

As Damon's long-term buddy Ben Affleck says in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back �You do the art picture then the safe picture,� and it's the safe that both moved onto, competing in rival blockbuster thrillers with Damon as the spy on the run and Affleck battling nuclear worries in The Sum Of All Fears, as they race to fill the shoes of the Cruises and Cages of the older generation of summer heroes.

Here Damon puts in a solid performance, what he lacks in natural charisma and worldly wisdom he makes up for in genuinely seeming like a man who doesn't know his own powers and by putting in some bone-crunching special moves, something that seems absent from Affleck's action stint. With Damon only dipping his toe in this genre of movie, The Bourne Identity is a project full of gambles with director Doug Liman, used to smaller indie success of Swingers and Go, also being a first timer. Shooting on location in Paris and Prague he mixes a small scale European movie with large scale set pieces and while taking cues from movies like Mission: Impossible, the thumping soundtrack and the over-laying of computer graphics is frequently used, Liman still maintains a sense of realism as you feel every punch while Bourne is not the kind of agent to simply blast his way out of a situation and is more likely to solve problems with a map of exits. To illustrate this point Liman even includes a nice little parody of the formula, the scene is typically set up with the expected voiceover and fly-thru of the target but the way it actually plays out is a great touch. Yet another risk is the casting of German Potente (Run Lola Run) as the female lead, pretty much an unknown outside her native country, but it is a good move, solidifying the film's European roots and not resorting to supplying a stereotypical screaming girl on the heroes arm even if she does make Damon look like a teenager.

The story concentrates on Bourne's amnesiac condition and doesn't seem too bothered about looking at what is supposed to be going on in a global sense which all good spy thrillers should do. Who is this African official? Why do the CIA want him dead? Who's pulling the strings? These questions you expect to be answered in the closing chapters but the film never delivers instead resorting to a stunt nowhere near as impressive as the ones seen previously and quickly wrapping up the plot all too nicely. While the bleak, wintry locations offer some great places to hold car chases and Damon fits the character perfectly, the movie never completely satisfies.