The Bourne Identity (2002) 11.15pm, Saturday, UTV

“You’re US Government property. You’re a malfunctioning $30 million weapon. You’re a total goddamn catastrophe” Across four instalments (we’re going to skip over that forgettable spin-o with Jeremy Renner), the Jason Bourne series has completely rewritten the rules for the action-espionage genre – and this is where it all began.

The Bourne Identity and its sequels are visceral, dirty and morally ambiguous lms; there’s no jingoistic bombast or white-hatted heroism. Bourne is a haunted man who’s more likely to drink himself to death than cheerily sink a vodka martini. He only ghts when he must and kills at the utmost limit of necessity, forever tortured by the guilt of his past sins.

In terms of action, too, the series shifted focus from outlandish Bondesque set-pieces to more grounded, chaotic, even intimate-feeling ghts and car-chases – though every bit as thrilling – and forced other movies to shift focus too. (Hence the grumbling misanthrope that is the current incarnation of 007.)

Paul Greengrass, who directed the second to fourth Bourne icks, is credited with this paradigm shift in action cinema. But Doug Liman’s opening Bourne Identity, while slightly more slick than its progeny, lays the foundations brilliantly.

Matt Damon is the American who is pulled, half-dead, from the Mediterranean. He has no memories of who he is or why he’s there. What he does have are bullet-holes in his back and a tiny laser projector, embedded in his skin, which gives details of a Swiss bank account.

So begins a country-hopping, asskicking odyssey for Bourne and the German woman (Franka Potente) who gives him a lift. He speaks several languages, knows krav maga, uncovers incredible secrets about himself and US intelligence agencies, drives cars like The Stig crossed with the Terminator, and even wins a knife- ght using a biro. The best part is, Damon and Liman somehow make it all feel earthily plausible.