It takes almost half the sequence for the tension and stakes of the chase to finally dawn on Bourne himself. This isn’t just an escape from anonymous Russian police, but perhaps his final encounter with the hitman who killed Marie at the beginning of the film and a last chance to make him pay. In one of the sequence’s finest moments, the action literally stops so that Bourne and Kirill can share one blistering look at each other from their respective cars, providing a shot in the arm for a 6-minute chase that could’ve easily become numbing by now.
All but using his stolen taxi as a weapon, Bourne whittles down the police and special units behind him until only Kirill remains in pursuit. Here, the key decision is made to funnel the action down in both scope and scale from the open-air streets to a lengthy underground tunnel that instantly makes every character choice and impeccably choreographed bit of vehicular mayhem hit that much harder. Surrounded by cars that quickly turn into collateral damage and boosted by John Powell’s propulsive original score, the sequence reaches its absolute peak of “How the heck did they film that?” territory as cars are battered into walls and into each other without the movement and flow of the action ever slowing down in the slightest. The magic of this sequence crescendos to a brilliantly-staged reversal that allows Bourne to gain the upper hand and end the chase in decisive, bone-crunching fashion.
None of it would’ve been effective without the editing, stunt driving, music, choreography, and every other facet of filmmaking working in perfect concert to deliver one of the finest car chases ever filmed. Even post-“Mad Max: Fury Road,” I’m hard-pressed to say this sequence has ever been topped.
