If you were a citizen of Iraq who's grandmother wife or child had been blow to bits during "shock & awe" do you think you might have a different take on moral equivalency?

I thought the last two Bourne movies were good movies, but completely forgettable.

Keep the camera still, Hollywood.

Bourne is pro-knowledge, pro-thinking, pro-foresight; hardly virtues of the past six years. He takes responsibility, our gov't self-righteously won't, under any circumstances, do the same.

I see the Bourne movies as a metaphor for America having lost its way, and then waking up mid-nightmare and deciding, bravely, to step back from torture and lawlessness, to atone and do what is right.

It is an anti-government movie, but the spirit of Bourne, who is undeniably a good and decent American, who fights and protects - he helps a Brit reporter after all, he atones for his murder to a Russian girl, etc - Bourne has a soul and a conscience and is strong and competent-

these are American values. Just not virtues of the Bush admin. Only a callow reading of the movie allows it to be anti-American. Like so many conservatives, you misunderstand anti-torture and anti-rendition as anti-American. No. THOSE latter things are the ones that are anti-American.

It's as American as you can get; a religious country that proudly trumpets its religiosity could hardly claim that atonement and making amends are un-American. Esp. if you buy Evangelical rhetoric, and to be Christian is to BE American (and vice versa)- then his atonement is political to the core, and he is a true American - flawed but self-correcting and diligently seeking his way, from his own moral compass.

Conservatives used to understand - Any criticism of the US is America bashing; it's tedious and depressing, as is your critique of the Bourne movies.

What better film - a film about a private religious awakening in the midst of what may be the third Great Awakening in US history?

I could go on and on; but I won't. I think my perspective is far more compelling than your by the numbers conservative anti-hollywood script.

Bourne chose with his eyes wide open to numb himself morally to win - to obey. We've had enough of both sentiments, look where it got us with Iraq. We're drowning in the consequences of that initial righteous ignroance. Enough.

Celebrate the thinking, pentitent American who is born to act, to do, and is unafraid to turn back and keep seeking a higher goal than mere victory at all costs against a forever enemy.

r

When "liberals" criticize actions taken by the government in the name of America, it is called "anti-Americanism".

When conservatives criticize actions taken by the government in the name of America, it is called "anti-big-government".

It is very much in the recent revival of the "paranoid thriller" tradition from the 70s,

to the best I recall of those 70s thrillers, they were touchingly idealistic not only in their faith in the American people, but in their elected representatives.

Sure, you'd have an evil senator here & there, but the idea that The Big Evil Secret Plot had been approved by cabinet secretaries and signed off on by the President himself -- like the black sites? Not so much.

The Ludlum thrillers, and AFAIK their movie adaptations (haven't seen # 3 yet), focus more on the "rogue agency" treatment. When will we start getting "rogue presidency" thrillers? Or will those be documentaries?

The same thing was done in V for Vendetta. In that movie the Koran was a forbidden book that you would be arrested and killed for having - when in reality this is what Saudi Arabia does for a person having a Bible. Bizarre world we live in when our enemies (and yes I consider Saudia Arabia to be one of our enemies) terrible traits are attributed to us by our friends in Hollywood.

Well, everyone has to be somewhere, don't they?

Anti Americanism...
If this is the case with this movie then they should ban it for disrespect to the country.

Nothing says American values like banning content you disagree with!

(Excellent spoofing, btw.)

And as an aside, is The New Yorker really something worth siting? Did Keith Olberman or Dan Rather have nothing to say?

It is very much in the recent revival of the "paranoid thriller" tradition from the 70s, though, along with, in their different ways, "Shooter" and "The Good Shepherd."

Bourne may cut too close to home for Last (home being the waterboy's end of the GWOT team bench) because, without dwelling on it, it becomes very much a post-9/11 movie in the recruitment scene. It's a neat trick, since the first movie, with its assassinating African politicos plotline, very much showed its 70s roots.

I would have imagined OTB would be a little more interested in Mayer's article than in what some movie says about the CIA. But to each his own.