The Bourne Ultimatum is probably the best action movie for a good few years, let's just get that clear. It satisfies. It is clever enough to make Transformers look like a three toed sloth with explosives strapped to it. It has Paddy Considine in it, for fuck's sake. What can go wrong?
But watching it made me realise something. Paul Greengrass clearly knows it. A single factor so ingrained in each and every one of us, so guaranteed to thrill, that the film would have succeeded if it was none of these things.
About twenty minutes into the film, L leaned over to me and said:
"I can't believe Paperchase is in the film!"
The fact that the taut action happening on screen was at Waterloo sent everyone in the cinema into paroxysms of barely containable joy. One bloke nearly headbutted his date into a bloody pulp in delight. Everyone of us in the cinema was barely able to restrain ourselves from standing up and shouting
"IT'S FUCKING WATERLOO!! IN FUCKING LONDON!!! I! HAVE! BEEN! THERE!"
So powerful is our pathetic desire to bask in any rays of reflected glory we were sold, then and there. We're so desperate for any sense of control over our tawdry little lives that the sight of somewhere we might have farted once immediately evokes warm feelings of nostalgia and ownership. In fact, fuck Paul Greengrass - as far as I'm concerned, I made this film.
I'm prepared to bet that anyone who reads this would be prepared to actually watch Mr Bean's Holiday if I told you that the street you live in is in it. Go on. It is.
You did, didn't you? You didn't see it? It's there, it's about half way through.
You watched it again, didn't you? See what I mean?
We're utter suckers for it. Ever since the day we saw someone from near us on Bullseye. Cavemen went apeshit when some fucker charcoaled a picture of a cave on the wall. Cause they'd been there, man.
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