History Film / TheBourneIdentity

* ShoutOut: The Parisian car chase in Marie's Mini Cooper is in homage to ''Film/TheItalianJob.'' Maybe that's why one of Bourne's aliases was John [[Creator/MichaelCaine Michael Kane.]]

* TheBackwardsR: His alias in Russian passport is Foma Kiniaev, and in Russian it is "Ащьф Лштшфум" (Astch'f Lshtshfum, yes, it is as unpronounceable as it looks). It is just the name "Foma Kiniaev" typed in Russian keyboard layout. The proper transliteration would be "Фома Киняев". And, by the way, the proper Latin transliteration for "Киняев" is "Kinyaev", not "Kiniaev".

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The name on Bourne's Russian passport is written "Kiniaev Foma" in Latin letters and "Лштшфум Ащьф " (Lshtshfum Aschf) in Cyrillic letters. Apparently, the designers of the prop just typed the name in the Russian keyboard layout without actually translating it. The name was corrected in ''The Bourne Supremacy.''

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Say what you will about Bourne's boss, but the guy [[spoiler: briefly fought Bourne, ripped him apart with a lecture while held at ''gunpoint'']] and [[spoiler: actually stumbled after Bourne even though he had to know he'd probably die]]. If nothing else, he was tough.

* AlasPoorVillain: The Professor's death scene. Despite trying to kill Bourne seconds earlier, our hero is horrified to realize he's another Treadstone agent. The audience already knows this, which may fatigue them with exposition. The screenwriter avoids this by injecting humanity into him, so instead of a steely eyed assassin, we meet a very human figure. Bleeding to death slowly, he begins to seemingly babble as Bourne tries to interrogate him, asking Bourne where he comes from, and darkly laughing about their terrible headaches-- a result of their mutual behavioral conditioning. In fact, he is not babbling, but seeking commonality in his final moments. Near death, he looks down at his own wound, turns to Bourne and moans his haunting final words, "Look at this. Look at what they make you give." The scene sets a tone for the rest of the movie series. It would initially seem to be about the Professor's lost life, but over the course of the trilogy, with the eventual losses Bourne will endure, the audience sees [[spoiler: that he's really talking about his sacrifice of his humanity to his government,]] and is [[MeaningfulEcho echoed]] in the final movie [[spoiler: as Jason Bourne's last line.]]

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: When Bourne shows his passport and enters the American Embassy, there's a brief scene wherein the local police who have been tailing him attempt to follow him inside and are stopped by the US Marine guards, saying that it's US territory and they have no jurisdiction. In reality, they never would have even tried this. Police departments that have embassies within their jurisdictions are thoroughly trained to regard embassies as foreign soil and to ''never'' attempt to enter, no matter what the reason. It would be a serious diplomatic incident, and in these post-9/11 days of continually heightened security, such an attempt by armed police officers would have resulted in a ''much'' more aggressive response from the Marine guards.

** The CIA is not as omniscient and all-powerful in this one. They make many mistakes and attempts to perform a coverup somewhat fail. Conklin can't simply stop the French police from investigating.

* LampshadeHanging: [[spoiler: "Boy, great police work! Really brilliant! Why don't they just hang out a banner that says, "Don't come back!" Jesus Christ! What is the French word for "stakeout?""]]

* VehicleVanish

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Treadstone Asset Manheim, seen several times throughout the movie, just up and vanishes. In ''Supremacy,'' Bourne confronts an Asset named Jarda who says they are the last two agents. It could be assumed they simply decided to replace Manheim with Jarda, since his name was never mentioned in ''Identity'' and neither is Jarda's in ''Supremacy'', but they are played by two different actors.

* AwesomeByAnalysis: While sitting in the truckstop, trying to get Marie to understand his memory loss, Jason points out in a frustrated tone that he's ''already'' scanned everyone in the diner, identified the biggest threats, determined his maximum endurance and plan of attack, and tells her the best location for a weapon.
--> '''Jason''': ''How can I know all that?'' How can I know all that and ''not know who I am?!''
* TheBackwardsR: His alias in Russian passport is Foma Kiniaev, and in Russian it is "Ащьф Лштшфум" (Astch'f Lshtshfum, yes, it is as unpronounceable as it looks). It is just the name "Foma Kiniaev" typed in Russian keyboard layout. The proper transliteration would be "Фома Киняев". And, by the way, the proper Latin translitiration for "Киняев" is "Kinyaev", not "Kiniaev".

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: WordOfGod says Conklin is based heavily on Col. Oliver North from the Iran/Contra scandal in the 1980's.

* OhCrap: Jason's reaction when Eamon's children notice their dog is missing, alerting Jason to the Prfessor's presence and immediately tells the family to hide in the basement.

* PoliceAreUseless: Toyed with. The Paris police are notably playing catchup with trying to catch Jason. They do however blunder by searching Jason's hotel room.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Creator/CliveOwen as "The Professor". He has only 3 minutes of total screentime, and he never talks until his final scene, almost a half-hour from the end, in which he delivers the ArcWords "Look at us. Look at what they make you give."

** The editing takes a different approach completely, with Liman employing Steadicam work and visual tricks like on-screen DesignStudentsOrgasm graphics when Treadstone hails its agents in Europe. The sequels employ Greengrass's signature JitterCam and devoid of any stylish flourishes that would detract from its grounded and realistic atmosphere.

* OhCrap: Jason's reaction when Eamon's children notice their dog is missing, alerting Jason to the Professor's presence and immediately tells the family to hide in the basement.
** The Professor during the field shootout when Jason uses his shotgun to scatter the birds in the area, their position giving away The Professor's, with no cover and nowhere to go.

A man (Bourne) is fished out of the Mediterranean Sea riddled with bullet-holes and with no memory of who he is. He makes the surprising discovery that he knows how to speak several languages, has plenty of money and passports in a safety deposit box, and he knows how to kill anything that moves. Retracing his steps, he finds himself being hunted by the government and, with the help of a pretty German globetrotter, he goes in search of his identity.

This film is followed by ''Film/TheBourneSupremacy''.