Reviews & Ratings for
Rooftop Pursuit (V) More at IMDbPro »

What's beyond "concise"?, 20 August 2009

Author: Grann-Bach (Grann-Bach@jubii.dk) from Denmark

This is one of the handful of featurettes on the DVD of The Bourne Ultimatum, and thus makes up the "explosive bonus content" that is declared to be on the disc, on the back of the cover. It's short. Seriously. In length, this is six minutes. Actually, more like five and a half, with the brief credits. Amazingly, it's not even the smallest of them. It communicates quite a lot in that span of time, and there are genuine explanations where they are needed. This is well-edited, consisting solely, apart from a few clips of the movie, of behind the scenes footage of the sequence that it deals with, that being the rooftop chase in Tangier. There are interviews as well, with crew and Damon. Music is well-chosen and cool. The Cable-cam is interesting to hear about, and it is also something they spend a bit of this going into. It's essentially an off-the-ground dolly, and thus ideal for the scene. The pacing is good, this could be overwhelming with so much so fast, and it could also come off as being curt, but neither really occur. I recommend this to anyone who enjoyed the film, and wants to know about the specific subject of this. 7/10

Cable Cam & Toffee glass, 13 January 2009

Author: Chip_douglas from Rijswijk, ZH, Netherlands

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Part of a series of short subjects filmed during the production of The Bourne Ultimatum, this one centers on the extended rooftop chase in the city of Tangiers. Matt Damon mentions that they are in 'Ambassador Square'. I never knew they had a square by that name in Marocco, but hey, he's Jason Bourne. He speaks more languages than Danger Mouse.

Most of the five minute running time is spent talking about the remote control Cable Cam that was especially rigged between several cranes in order to keep up with Damon & the stunt people as they speed across a series of 5 roofs. Notice that all these second unit people have pretty fancy titles to their name ranging from Special Effects Wire Supervisor (Jason Leinster), 2nd Unit Libra (copyright) Technician (Joe Buxton) to just plain Special Effects technician (Hayley Williams). This last one being in charge of replacing fake bendy glass with toffee glass for the bit where Bourne steals some poor Marrocan family's laundry (during the month of Ramadan no less) and wraps it around his hands so he won't cut them on some inexplicably broken glass.

The best new credit goes to stuntman Diz Sharpe, however, who was apparently personally selected by stunt coordinator Dan Bradley to be a 'JumpCam Operator'. This means he was tied to a harness, given a flash course in camera operating and then told to jump off a roof following his colleague doubling Damon (who's name I didn't catch) as the guy in front threw himself into a window on the opposite side. It's all very Bourne according to Matt. And of course no one should argue with that.

7 out of 10

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