MovieChat Forums > The Bourne Supremacy (2004) Discussion > Question about the plot

Question about the plot

posted 10 years ago by Whats_This_Now
11 replies | jump to latest

Love the Bourne films but this has always bothered me about the plot of Supremacy. Why did Abbott/Gretkov send an assassin to kill Bourne at all? I understand the logic of having him dead of course, but from repeated evidence Abbott should have known that there was a very good chance that Bourne would get away. In the first film they mobilise 'all their assets' to get him and fail, we see Bourne take down several other assassins. At the beginning of this film Abbott points out that Bourne was the best, the number one guy in Treadstone, and later Landy tells Abbott that Bourne had killed or eluded everybody Abbott had sent after him since he left Treadstone. So why did Abbott think that it was a good idea to try to kill Bourne again?

The whole plan would have worked better if they had not tried to kill Bourne, safe in the knowledge that Bourne would never know he had been framed in Berlin and the CIA would never take him, alive at least. Instead he provided Bourne with a reason to get involved, probably the only person with the capability of putting all the pieces together and exposing Abbott.

Any thoughts? If you were Abbott would you have tried to have an assassin kill Bourne again to neatly close off any chance of yourself being exposed, or would you have left Bourne out there for fear that your attempt to kill him would fail as they had every previous time and instead only provoke him to come out of hiding?

[–] clark_gillies 10 years ago

With Bourne dead, Landly would be chasing shadows.

Abbot knew that Treadstone was the key to linking him with the CIA funds going missing.... with Conklin dead it was simply a case of pointing the finger at him (after all a dead man can not defend himself) and hope enough people buy it due to Conklins reputation within the CIA as a nut who had his men wound up to tight....

This probably got Abbot the time he needed, but when Landy found the other Russian, he knew it would link him to this, so set up that Bourne did the kill and he was trying to protect his name.... there is very little to link Abbot and Bourne together, so just a case of pointing the finger at those two again.

With Bourne alive he knew it was only a matter of time before Landy found him (after all, Abbot had been tracking him for two years) and Abbot just could not take the gamble on what Bourne could remember.

Bourne dead would mean Landy was chasing shadows again as the case would just run cold there as both Conklin and Bourne are both dead, and they were the two main suspects.

We know very little of the events between Identity and Supremacy other than Abbot shut it down, restarted it as Blackbryer and at some point in the inquest into Bourne and Treadstone he got Blackbryer taken off him and handed to Vosen, and though not enough evidence to convict, they just simply put him out the way until his retirement in a year or two.

[–] Whats_This_Now 10 years ago

Thanks for the reply, I think you have excellently summed up the argument for Abbott having Bourne assassinated.

I suppose the question that bothers me the most is whether it was more of a gamble to attempt to kill the widely-acknowledged greatest assassin/agent you had, or to leave him out there in the wild knowing he has amnesia and has evaded every CIA attempt to catch/kill him in the past.

Your post did make me reconsider how ill-advised (previously I thought very!) the assassination attempt was. In terms of the film (I believe that this is different in the books) the only reason Bourne came back was because Marie died. And the only reason Abbott is wrong-footed is because the assassin believes he killed Bourne. We don't get to see what Abbott's contingency plan for a failed assassination attempt was, but presumably Bourne and Mari would have kept running making them even harder to track/find (thus keeping Abbott's secret somewhat safer than it was).

[–] clark_gillies 10 years ago

I suppose Abbot felt safer knowing all loose ends were dealt with, rather than taking the gamble on what Bourne can remember or not.

From what we can gather, Abbot had Bourne followed between the two movies, and over time he felt that they were not so much of a threat that he could back off to a safe distance.... but still keeping one eye on them.

Suddenly he gets wind about Landy finding another Russian with evidence that points to him, so they have to come up with a plan fast enough..... they know its a leak in the CIA, so with Abbot dead Abbot could point the finger at him, and just to keep it all together, frame Bourne to make it look like the two of them were in it together, have Bourne killed and let the trail run cold again.

Could be argued that using Bourne and Treadstone was probably bring it far to close to home for Abbot, but suppose it also gave him a excuse to deal with the problem of Jason Bourne.

[–] MrRazorz 10 years ago

If they frame Bourne and then he dies or vanishes, then he's out of the way and unable to defend himself, and the CIA will spend forever chasing a red herring. If they frame him and leave him running around free, there's a chance of the whole thing backfiring on them - which is exactly what happens.

Of course, avenging Marie (or at least finding out why she died) is pretty much Bourne's main motivation in the story, so it's hard to say how the frame-job would have played out if she'd lived.

[–] clark_gillies 10 years ago

I think they just took it that Marie knew nothing, so if she survived she was of no great threat, but think the plan was to ideally take them both out, but killing Bourne was the main objective.

[–] wagross 10 years ago

Bourne's only motivation for going after the CIA is his dreams and memories of his murder of the Neskis. The script makes it that by going after that he uncovers that Abbott is responsible for that mission and the assassination attempt on him. Mere accident! No revenge motivation! Bourne looks for the Neski girl in Moscow to apologize, not for Kirill to kill him, who goes after Bourne. He has to defend himself. Bourne doesn't even purposefully kill Kirill.

[–] MrRazorz 10 years ago

Bourne's only motivation for going after the CIA is his dreams and memories of his murder of the Neskis. The script makes it that by going after that he uncovers that Abbott is responsible for that mission and the assassination attempt on him. Mere accident! No revenge motivation!

Hmmmmm... nope.

Bourne's been having those dreams and flashbacks for months at least (he says it's "two years") and writing them down while Marie tries to help him remember things. When Kirill shows up to whack them, Bourne assumes he was sent by Treadstone/CIA - because from his point of view, who the hell else would be sending assassins after him? Kirill takes out Marie but misses Bourne, and then he goes after the CIA (blaming them for her death, which was only partly true). He finds out from Jarda that Treadstone was shut down (later confirmed by Landy) and gradually uncovers the real plot against him.

[–] clark_gillies 10 years ago

No, the dreams and memories had nothing to do with it..... Bourne thought Treadstone had come to get him again (he did not know it had been shut down) and this time they succeeded by killing Marie (when they were trying to get him)..... from this point it is revenge for Marie.

It stops becoming about revenge for Marie when Bourne is on the roof in Berlin and suddenly stops himself from taking out Landy, because he finally figures out that his memories have something to do with Berlin and what Landy is trying to solve.

Up to this point the memories mean very little to him..... he arrives in Naples with no idea of what his next step is.... he is able to get a name, Pam Landy, and just assumes that she is the one running Treadstone now (unless you watch the "alternative" opening and endings of Identity, Bourne also has no idea of Abbott is either.....) and only heads to Berlin when he taps her phone to hear her say that she will be in Berlin the next day.

This is when he starts to uncover the truth, and what you say is right......... heading to Moscow to apologize was never a option until he finally figured what had happened (way Movie is set out though you just assume it is to get Kirill.... but up to this point Kirill has not entered Bournes mind, he just assumed he was another Treadstone agent doing his job.... and it is only by complete luck that their paths cross in Moscow).

So I would has the first half of the movie is driven by Motivation for revenge for Marie... while the 2nd half is looking for forgiveness for his actions in the past.

[–] wagross 9 years ago

Bourne assumed that treadstone wanted to kill him. Therefore he is after them. But that't not the same as a revenge motivation. There is no sign of it. Therefore the constant rationalisation that he didn't want revenge because of Marie. Of course not!

[–] wagross 10 years ago

[–] akg96-1 8 years ago

Dead people don't tell lies, only live people tell lies. Let's follow the energy of Bourne, since this is what the whole movie is about. He begins with knowing nothing about himself or how he got there. He's got adversaries all around him & has no time to chill & think things over. At one point he's told that he's a killer (a projection from his main adversary) which he doesn't worry about at all. He's got to move & keep moving on to survive. He learns more & more about the outside world & also about himself. To tie things together & clean up his karma & to clean up his thoughts, he returns to confess to the daughter of her parents who he's slain. Why? Because he has empathy, has a heart. In return for handing over the tape to Pam Landry, he gets rewarded with knowing 'who he is' & where he came from. Can you relate to him at all? I do. Movies are like myths, or at least the Bourne ones are. As such it's an allegory & part of what's called the (human) race mind, In this way it's like the movie "Matrix".