Frank Gardner

Frank Gardner is the BBC Security Correspondent, who came in specifically to review The Bourne Ultimatum - it was the week Hardeep Singh Kohli was the stand-in for Mark. Gardner joined in the Box Office Top 10 countdown when it got to The Simpsons Movie by singing the Spider-Pig song.

Gardner enjoyed The Bourne Ultimatum very much, identifying especially with Paddy Considine's Guardian reporter - "a journalist and security correspondent who gets plugged full of bullets." (Gardner was famously shot by al-Qaeda sympathisers while on deployment in Saudi Arabia). Gardner also appreciated the film's use of the technique in which the shutter speed is slowed down to create a blurred, hazy effect. He personally knew one of the scriptwriters, and found joy in the way the Americans in the film say things like "get the vehicles, we're going mobile" - whereas in Britain it would have been "we'll get the car, shall we?"

On the other hand, Gardner also pointed out that in no way was the film a believable description of how the US actually acts, on the basis that there aren't actually Jason Bourne characters around the place. Also the famous scene in Waterloo Station involving Considine simply wouldn't happen.