Matt Damon might now be considered something of an action star, but this wasn't the genre he started out in. Goodwill Hunt in 1997, a film that earned him and co-writer Ben Affleck the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. From there, Damon appeared in Steven Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan in 1998 and Rounders that same year.
Throughout the 2000s, Damon appeared in several high-profile films, with Ocean's Eleven and its two sequels are among the most notable. Most recently, he had major roles in Christopher Nolan's acclaimed film Oppenheimerbut he also delved into science fiction with The Martian (2015) and Interstellar (2014). Some of Damon's best-known acting work, however, is in the action genre, with his role as a highly skilled assassin helping to make him a household name.
The Bourne Identity gets a middling accuracy score for select gun scenes
But Matt Damon is a “comfortable” gun user
A Firearms Expert Award The Bourne Identity an average realism score due to some errors in weapon handling. Released in 2002, Doug Liman's action thriller features Damon as Jason Bourne, the amnesiac assassin created by Robert Ludlum who works to rebuild his life. The first Bourne The film features a series of high-tension action sequences, including a shootout on a high staircase and another involving Clive Owen's rival assassin in a field.
In a recent video for Insideranalyzes firearms expert and retired U.S. Army Special Operations soldier Patrick McNamara The Bourne IdentityThe stairwell shootout, giving the film a mixed accuracy rating. While the fact that Bourne holds the pistol upside down is not unrealistic, McNamara disagrees with the fact that he was unable to hold the pistol correctly after a pause in the fight. He also questions Bourne's ability to shoot a free-falling enemy in the center of the stairs:
He grabbed the guy's pistol immediately like that. There's no time to think about it. I mean, if it were me and I picked up the pistol like that and understood its handling characteristics, I could. But then he had plenty of time to turn the game around and control it well. So what he's doing is grabbing it like this and shooting it with his little finger.
Now, to be honest, I've done this before for demonstration purposes, telling people that when it comes to shooting, the most important thing is sight alignment and trigger control. It doesn't matter what your grip is, your stance, any of those things, but as far as shooting effectively? Absolutely not. You don't have anatomical stability like that.
I thought the scene was really, really cool, but two heavy parts facing the same direction will have you plummeting almost immediately. You won't free fall like you're on a magic carpet. There is no way in hell he would be able to effectively shoot someone let alone shoot a gun. He was holding on for dear life.
Next, McNamara analyzes the fight between Bourne and Owen's rival assassin, the Professor, a scene he explains is ultimately more realistic. Check out the second part of his review, which includes praise for Damon's gun-handling skills and his score for the scenes out of 10 below:
When you're shooting in a field like this with tall, say knee-high grass, there are a few things that can increase accuracy. One, the smaller the better and the wider the better. The lower, the more stability, the wider, the more mobility.
As far as accuracy goes, it's a shotgun, so you don't really need to be that steady. It didn't really matter if he was standing up, face down […] or anything like that, I would do the same thing he did on this one.
I imagine this is a preferred technique where you put the stock under your arm and are shooting a shotgun, then break the rifle in half, extract the empty shells, and put in the new shells. Flipping it to lock it, I would probably just help it with my hand rather than turning it like this.
I would rate these two clips in terms of realism, about six [out of 10]. The way he moves with a rifle or a pistol, he looks very comfortable. He seems comfortable with these things. It's like an extension of your person.
Our Take on The Bourne Identity Mixed Realism Score
Matt Damon is still a great killer
The Bourne Identity started the success Bourne franchise, which now consists of five films in total and a short-lived TV show. Even though it's been almost 9 years since Damon's last appearance as the titular assassin, there's now interest in making Jason Bourne6with All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) director Edward Berger is reportedly a possible candidate to direct. It's still unclear whether this new installment will actually happen, but Damon's character clearly resonated with audiencesdespite the stretching reality of the franchise.
Ultimately, the purpose of a film is to entertain and The Bourne Identity certainly does that, boasting an 84% critic score and 93% audience rating on Rotten tomatoes. Even if there are aspects of the film that aren't realistic – as there certainly are for every entry in the franchise – Damon seems at home as the character, and it's easy to buy him as a killer.
Source: Insider