I finally got round to seeing the Bourne Ultimatum at the weekend. (Spoiler ahead) It shoots straight into the top ten for cinematic journalist portrayals, though it doesn’t do us any favours. Paddy Considine plays Simon Ross, fictional security correspondent of the Guardian, a reporter so drippy his photo-byline is a tea stain.
Farringdon Road features, and there’s an interesting cameo by Alan Rusbridger’s glasses.
Ross, whose note-taking skills make Andrew Gilligan look like Marcel Proust, is hunted down by a CIA team led by David Strathairn (the irony — cinema’s Edward R. Murrow turned journo-slayer).
Ross — a bit of a liability — is shot dead on Waterloo station (appropriately, by someone called an asset).
He’s hiding in a cupboard when he loses his nerve in a scene oddly reminiscent of Bambi, where the birds are sheltering from a hunter in the undergrowth. One of them cracks:
He’s almost here.
I can’t stand it any longer. [Bang/feathers flutter to ground]
The lessons?
- File your story online first.
- Don’t go and meet assassin-pursued pyschopathic contacts.
- If you do — stay in the cupboard.
Good advice.
