"Holy shit, according to this, these movies have been going since people still read newspapers!"

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

EXT. MEDITERRANEAN SEA

A SAILOR goes to SEA SEA SEA, to SEE what he can SEE SEE SEE, but all that he can SEE SEE SEE is A BULLET-RIDDLED MATT DAMON FLOATING NEARLY DEAD ON THE SEA SEA SEA.

SAILOR

Wow, it’s lucky for him a boat passed this close to him before he bled out, and even luckier that I happened to wander above deck in the like two-minute window where he could be spotted. But those strokes of luck mean nothing unless this random fishing boat happens to have a fully-qualified doctor on board...

(glares pointedly at crew)

FISHING BOAT DOCTOR

Sure, I can be a trained doctor with a full surgical kit, why the hell not.

They haul MATT aboard and the DOCTOR de-bulletizes him.

FISHING BOAT DOCTOR

Okay, I rescued Matt Damon. Pretty fresh right now, but eventually “Matt Damon gets rescued” is gonna be the biggest cliché in this movie.

MATT DAMON

(wakes up)

Who am I??? Oh no, I’ve got AMNESIA!!

FISHING BOAT DOCTOR

I stand corrected. Hey, maybe this tiny laser pointer I dug out of your hip is a clue?

MATT DAMON

(examines laser)

Hey, this thing projects the name of a Swiss bank and an account number. So I guess I was given this just in case I, who will later be established as having the kind of training that allows you to stroll through a parking lot and instantly memorize all the license plates, happen to forget my bank account number as well as the fucking NAME of the bank I regularly visit.

FISHING BOAT DOCTOR

Well maybe this will prove useful when you go to the nearest American embassy and explain your situation to them.

MATT DAMON

I could do that sensible thing. Or, and stop me if I’m being crazy here, we could actually HAVE a movie, idiot.

INT. SPY HEADQUARTERS

BRIAN COX seeks a SECRET SPY CONVERSATION with CHRIS COOPER.

BRIAN COX

What’s this I hear about a botched assassination attempt on exiled warlord Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje? He says it was the CIA! News like this could tarnish the name of our international gang of barely-accountable torturer-murderer-saboteur-spies!

CHRIS COOPER

Sorry, we don’t know what the hell happened, our agent botched the mission and we haven’t heard from him since.

(pause)

So we’re just letting the audience know, right up front, that Matt’s deal is that he’s a black-ops CIA assassin who got shot trying to kill Adewale? The backstory he’s trying to figure out, we’re blurting the whole thing out like fifteen minutes into the movie.

BRIAN COX

Well we had to do something, some of the audience were coming dangerously close to becoming intrigued.

INT. SWISS BANK

MATT enters the BANK from that LASER POINTER THING.

MATT DAMON

All right, let’s open my security deposit box, and see if it offers some clues as to my... IDENTITY.

(sighs)

Better make the most of this “relevant title” thing while it lasts. I’m sure as hell not gonna find many supremacies or ultimatums in the next couple of movies.

He opens the DEPOSIT BOX to find GUNS, CASH and a PASSPORT.

MATT DAMON

Ooh, a passport! So my name’s “Jason Bourne” then!

(looks)

Except there are like twenty other passports in here, and therefore twenty other names to choose from. But fuck it, for the rest of my life I’ll just act like the first name I saw was the correct one, even after I find out it’s not.

He pours the PASSPORTS and CASH into a BAG and LEAVES.

BANK EMPLOYEE

All right, he’s leaving, now to inform my secret CIA superiors of his presence. Instead of informing them, say, ten minutes ago when he got here so they had time to do anything about it.

He contacts CHRIS.

CHRIS COOPER

Hot dog, we know what city he’s in! Send some guys to the American Embassy in Zurich in case he shows up there.

JULIA STILES

But sir, unless he’s completely lost his memory or something, surely Matt would studiously avoid such a clumsy civilian-ish move?

CHRIS COOPER

Shut up and help me create this messy public incident already.

INT. AMERICAN EMBASSY

MATT shows up at the EMBASSY only for a dozen GUARDS to start YELLING and WAVING GUNS AROUND and SCARING THE FUCK OUT OF EVERYBODY. He uses a combination of MARTIAL ARTS and SPYCRAFT to get away from them.

MATT DAMON

Awesome, it looks like I’ve gotten that convenient Hollywood version of amnesia which targets biographical information with surgical precision, whilst leaving all skills and general knowledge perfectly intact!

He finds GERMAN IMMIGRANT FRANKA POTENTE about to get into her CAR.

MATT DAMON

Hey, can I get a lift? I can pay you twenty thousand dollars.

FRANKA POTENTE

Okay, two thousand dollars would have been suspiciously high. Twenty thousand? You might as well be offering me a suitcase full of blood-soaked cocaine.

MATT DAMON

Come onnn, I have to get off the street before I get spotted with my comically easy-to-identify red Santa Claus sack of cash.

FRANKA POTENTE

Fine, get in. Where are we going? Like two miles down the road so you can steal a car, continue alone, and not involve me any further than strictly necessary?

MATT DAMON

Actually I was thinking you could drive me all the way to France, while I tell you every bit of the sensitive, clearly dangerous information I’ve gathered thus far.

FRANKA POTENTE

Jesus. Feel like painting a giant neon bullseye on me while you’re at it?

INT. SPY HEADQUARTERS

CHRIS COOPER

Shit, we lost him! All right, we’ll have to send all our other assassins after him.

JULIA STILES

(gasps)

ALL of them?!

CHRIS COOPER

Yes. All three. Three is not that many people, you know. Oh and get one of the assassins, the Clive Owen one I suppose, to kill Adewale while he’s at it.

JULIA STILES

Good idea! Nothing is sure to discredit Adewale’s insane babbling about CIA assassins as effectively as his sudden assassination.

EXT. FRENCH APARTMENT BUILDING

MATT and FRANKA arrive in PARIS.

MATT DAMON

Okay, this is the address given on the “Jason Bourne” passport. Let’s see what we can learn about me in there.

FRANKA POTENTE

Seriously? With government agents hunting you down your best plan is to go right to your own house?

MATT DAMON

Eh, we should be fine so long as we sneak in carefully and stay on our guard, and get out of there as quickly as possible.

(pause)

Or, you know, stroll in the front door, poke casually around, make some phone calls, have a shower, whatever. Let’s play it by ear.

They head into the APARTMENT and search through it for a bit, but then MATT gets a BAD FEELING.

MATT DAMON

Uh oh, is another assassin somewhere around here? This could be bad. Somebody with the same finely-honed spy training as me would undoubtedly have prepared a fiendishly lethal ambush, with all the meticulous cunning of-

ASSASSIN NICKY NAUDE SMASHES IN THROUGH THE WINDOW, spraying MACHINE GUN FIRE all over the place and managing to hit precisely NOBODY.

NICKY NAUDE

Damnit, I’m out! I guess I’ll have to resort to my trusty sidearm.

(pats pockets)

...Uh... I mean, my trustyyyy... come on, I have to have some kind of secondary weapon, surely...

(pulls out tiny half-inch knife)

Wow. I am so not geared for this instance.

They FIGHT! NICKY tries to kill MATT with his nigh-invisible MICRO-KNIFE, which MATT effectively counters with A FUCKING BALLPOINT PEN.

NICKY NAUDE

DEFEATED! FUCK! Oh well, we elite super-assassins always have an ace up our sleeves. I will simply-

(hurls himself out window, plummets three stories and dies)

MATT DAMON

That was one craaaazy mofo.

Discovering a clue about one of MATT’S other identities, MATT and FRANKA investigate until they find out about the ATTEMPT ON ADEWALE’S LIFE.

FRANKA POTENTE

What the FUCK man, you’re an ASSASSIN?! I just assumed you had some other job that involved fake identities, large sums of money, government agents being after you, and the ability to murder people with guns, fists and stationery! Like an extreme dental hygienist, or, uh, a haberdasher with messed-up hobbies?

(pause)

Yeah I probably shouldn’t be the least bit shocked about this.

MATT DAMON

This doesn’t put a dent in our burgeoning sexual chemistry, I hope?

FRANKA POTENTE

Nah, you know Hollywood’s rule about amnesia: murders you don’t remember don’t count.

INT. SPY HEADQUARTERS

CHRIS COOPER

Goddamnit, we’ve lost Matt again. What do we know about this Franka chick he’s driving around with?

JULIA STILES

Apparently at some point of her life, she crashed at a cabin for like a week. Some student sleeping over at a friend’s place in rural bumfuck nowhere, this is a thing that the CIA has records of somehow.

CHRIS COOPER

A random location Franka visited once? That’s got to be where they’re going! Send in the Clive Owen!

INT. FARMHOUSE

Sure enough, MATT and FRANKA are staying with her COUNTRY FRIEND.

MATT DAMON

Shit, they’ve sent another assassin after me! I don’t suppose he could be an incompetent fuckwit like Nicky?

CLIVE OWEN

Nope, this trilogy assigns you one coldly efficient and professional adversary per movie, and I’m afraid that’s me.

MATT DAMON

Well in that case I imagine there’s little I could do that would distract you from HEY LOOK BIRDS

CLIVE OWEN

(looking around the sky)

Where? Where?

MATT kills CLIVE then returns to FRANKA.

MATT DAMON

You need to get out of here. Use my sackful of cash to just go to a random motel or something, just don’t go to friends or family or anyplace where you could be tracked down.

FRANKA POTENTE

That makes sense. In fact it makes so much sense that I have to wonder where the fuck this idea was yesterday.

MATT DAMON

No time for plot holes, you need to run, Franka, run! Run someplace where the entire resources of the CIA won’t be able to track you down, but I somehow will when I want to!

INT. SPY HEADQUARTERS

MATT uses his SPY SKILLS to locate CHRIS’S PLACE and go CONFRONT HIM.

MATT DAMON

So what happened to me in the Mediterranean, Chris? I kind of lost my memory afterwards.

CHRIS COOPER

Damnit, does EVERY super soldier Brian Cox help create turn into a dangerous fugitive with no memory? Look, you planned a hit on Adewale’s boat, but then you bailed when it turned out he had his kid with him.

MATT DAMON

Man. You’d think if a meticulous planner like me was going to set up a boat assassination, that one of the details he’d bother to find out in advance would be WHO THE PASSENGERS ARE.

CHRIS COOPER

So I guess you’re going to kill me now?

MATT DAMON

Nah, we’ve decided on a slightly unorthodox template for the climaxes of these three movies. I confront a guy who was somehow responsible for me becoming an assassin, I have a flashback to some murder I was ordered to commit, then I leave without killing the guy, thus signifying that I’m done with being a murderer.

(pause)

Despite EVERY OTHER SCENE IN THE TRILOGY indicating the opposite, of course. In fact I’m gonna go kill a couple more people right now as soon as I leave this room.

He LEAVES, but as he exits TWO HENCHMEN come up the STAIRWELL at him. He SHOOTS the first guy.

MATT DAMON

Now while I could easily wait for the second guy to show his face and shoot him too, I think I’d stand a better chance of hitting him if I was falling past him at twenty meters per second.

He jumps on the FIRST GUY’S CORPSE and drops himself down the middle of the STAIRWELL, capping the SECOND GUY on his way down.

MATT DAMON

(gets up, brushes himself off)

Nothing cushions the impact of a five-story fall like a lumpy human skeleton!

(waltzes out)

CHRIS COOPER

Hang on, it’s over? But we only saw two of those three assassins go after Matt. What happened to the third-

(shot by third assassin)

Me and my big mouth.

(dies)

INT. GREEK SCOOTER RENTAL OUTLET

MATT turns up at the cute little STORE that FRANKA now runs.

MATT DAMON

Dang, you’ve done better with no identity and the CIA after you than I could ever have plausibly expected.

FRANKA POTENTE

So is it all over, then?

MATT DAMON

You bet! I asked them to stop chasing me, then killed a couple more of their guys and left. I figure that oughta get them off my case.

FRANKA POTENTE

Good! I knew you wouldn’t come back into my life until it was absolutely assured that being around you wasn’t going to get me killed.

MATT DAMON

Uh, yeah. Of course not.

(hides Bourne Supremacy script)

END.

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