Already obsolete, last decade's financially successful Bourne trilogy?The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy, (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum, (2007)?needed re-booting to suit the new administration's political pragmatism (the persistence of foreign policies and espionage strategies once deemed unpopular). But the series' awful rote cynicism (characterizing ruthless, degenerate American identity) was powered by Bush-hatred more than the Robert Ludlum source novels. The films were part of the post-2000 election political contempt and national self-loathing that now proves too strong to die. It infects self-congratulatory Hollywood to this day?and so deeply that it even ruins Tony Gilroy's amped-up attempt to turn the Bourne series' anomie into a love story. This time Matt Damon's paradigmatic Bourne is replaced by another rogue agent Aaron Cross/ Kenneth Kitsom (Jeremy Renner) put on the kill list by noxious CIA chief Byer (Edward Norton), along with several other players?all Bourniacs who embarrass the Agency's mission. Sinister Byer explains "We're Sin-Eaters. We are morally indefensible and absolutely necessary." His bromide's directed at personnel who missed A Few Good Men and can't handle the truth such as government scientist Marta Shearling (Rachel Weisz) who previously drugged agents as part of a diabolical plan to dope-up super spies .When Cross/Kitsom contacts Marta about his addiction, she's survived an in-house massacre (having also been put on the kill list) and the two renegades?rebelling against the system?fall in love. It's mutual anti-Americanism. This kind of neo-noir, replete with political skepticism and action-movie blatancy, isn't simply sentimental. It mixes romance, violence and cynicism. Its hypocritical message: "Don't trust the government" even if you're both killers in love. He's a vet of Operation Iraqi Freedom (still wearing his damaged youth face from The Hurt Locker plus the pugilist fatigue of Daniel Craig's Bond); she's interested in "Behavioral designs, programmable behavior," though she never resolves her part in the death of a hunky agent. Gilroy is interested in genre mechanisms (including a Sunset Boulevard floating narrator's body reference) not human interrelations. He shows career-best kinetic skill (more than past Bourne directors); still, the franchise feels empty. To read the full review visit City Arts by [clicking here. ](http://cityarts.info/2012/08/10/born-cynicism/)
