Matt Damon may now be considered something of an action star, but his work in the genre is somewhat limited in the grand scheme of his career. Damon's big break was Good Will Hunting in 1997, a movie that won him and co-writer Ben Affleck a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. From there, Damon went on to appear in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan in 1998 and Rounders that same year.
Throughout the 2000s, Damon appeared in a number of high-profile movies, with Ocean's Eleven and its two sequels being among the most notable. More recently, he's had strong roles in Christopher Nolan's acclaimed Oppenheimer, but he's also delved into sci-fi with The Martian (2015) and Interstellar (2014), as well as docudrama with Air (2023). Some of Damon's most well-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 Earns A Middling Accuracy Score For Select Gun Scenes
But Matt Damon Is A "Comfortable" Weapons
A firearms expert awards Damon as Jason Bourne, the Robert Ludlum-created amnesiac assassin who works to piece his life back together after a job goes wrong. The first Bourne movie features a number of high-tension action sequences, including a shooting scene in a tall staircase and another involving Clive Owen's rival assassin in a field.
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In a recent video for Insider, firearms expert and retired U.S. Army Special Operations soldier Patrick McNamara analyzes The Bourne Identity's staircase shootout, ultimately awarding the film a mixed accuracy grade. Though Bourne's holding of the pistol upside down in a pinch isn't unrealistic, McNamara takes issue with him not switching to a proper grip on the pistol after a lull in the fight. He also calls into question Bourne's ability to shoot an enemy while in free fall down the center of the staircase:
He grabbed the guy’s pistol immediately like this. No time to think about it. I mean, if it were me and I grabbed the pistol like that and I understand its handling characteristics, I might. But then he had plenty of time to just flip it around and get a good grip on it. So what he’s doing is he’s gripping it this way and firing it with his pinky finger.
Now, to be honest, I have done this before for demonstration purposes, telling people when it comes to firing, the most important thing is sight alignment and trigger control. It doesn’t matter what your grip is, your stance, any of that stuff, but as far as firing effectively? Absolutely not. You have zero anatomical stability like this.
I thought the scene was very, very cool, but two heavy portions facing the same way you’re going to nosedive almost immediately. You’re not going to free fall like you’re on a magic carpet. There’s no way in hell that he would’ve been able to get effective fire on anybody let alone even shoot a gun. He’d been hanging on for dear life.
McNamara next looks at the fight between Bourne and Owen's rival assassin, the Professor, a scene that he explains is ultimately more realistic. Check out the second part of his analysis, 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 grass, let’s say knee-high, there’s a couple things that can increase accuracy. One, is the lower 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 really don’t need to be that stable. It really doesn’t matter whether he was standing, in the prone […] or anything of that fashion, I would do the same thing he did in this one.
I would imagine that is a preferred technique where you’re cupping the butt under your arm and you’re shotgunning so you’re breaking that rifle in half, extracting the empties and putting in the new cartridges. Flipping it up to lock it, I’d probably just assist it with my hand instead of flipping it up like that.
I would rate both of these clips for realism about a six [out of 10]. The way he moves with either a rifle or a pistol, he looks very comfortable. He looks at ease with that stuff. It’s like it’s an extension of his person.
Our Take On The Bourne Identity's Mixed Realism Score
Matt Damon Still Makes For A Great Assassin
The Bourne Identity kicked off the successful Bourne franchise, which now consists of five movies in total and a short-lived TV show. Even though it's been almost 9 years since Damon's last outing as the titular assassin, there is now interest in making Jason Bourne 6, with All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) director Edward Berger reportedly a possible candidate to direct. It's not yet clear if this new installment will actually happen, but Damon's character has clearly resonated with audiences, despite the franchise's stretching of reality.
Damon addressed Bourne 6 during an interview earlier this year, revealing that he hasn't read a script but that he's open to returning if the story is right. "I’m as anxious as you are to see if this thing," he said, "I hope it’s great, and that we can do it."
Ultimately, a movie's goal is to entertain, and The Bourne Identity certainly does this, sporting an 84% critics' score and 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a $214 million box office haul. Even if there are aspects of the film that aren't realistic – as there surely are for all entries in the franchise – Damon looks right at home as the character, and it's easy to buy him as an assassin.
Source: Insider
- Birthdate
- October 8, 1970
- Birthplace
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Notable Projects
- The Bourne Identity
- Professions
- Actor, Film Producer, Screenwriter
- Height
- 5 feet 10 inches
Discover the latest news and filmography for Matt Damon, known for Good Will Hunting and The Martian.
