Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

mlhawken-503-861998 Yes, the Matt Damon Bourne movies are good, but they are not about the Jason Bourne written about by Robert Ludlum. Very seldom does a movie represent a book well, but the made for TV Bourne Identity does. If you are not a reader, but would like to know the real story of Jason Bourne and Treadstone then watch this. It is truly excellent!

cooltroy Very good movie, enjoyed it much more than the 2002 Mat Damon one. I am not a fan of all the new age CGI than is constantly being crammed down our throats. This movie was quite realistic and didn't come off fake, like today's computerized bull.It had a bit more of a romance twist than expected, and Richard Chamberlain as a bad ass was the only part I didn't buy in to,but for the $1 rental it was fine. It's always nice to see original work than the constant Hollywood remade crap. It was also was cool to see the old school foreign cars, and real, shot on location scenes. Made me miss Paris. I would definitely watch again and recommend it to all.

Robert J. Maxwell I've only watched Part I of this two-part miniseries but it's possible to see with some clarity where it's going. I may have managed to see the whole thing when it was released some twenty years ago but didn't remember any of it except for the criminally beautiful Jaclyn Smith and a sexy scene in which Jason Bourne, Richard Chamberlain, tenderly undresses her. Don't worry. No nudity, and the sex is all slow-motion close ups and dissolves, one cliché following in lockstep on the heels of the previous one.Compared to the more recent release with Matt Damon in the title role, it's better than I'd expected. TV movies don't have the time for rehearsals and the budget imposes other limits on the production. I worked in a miniseries with Jaclyn Smith -- the critically acclaimed cult hit, "Sidney Sheldon's Windmills of the Gods" -- and it was slam-bang fast.Compared to the recent version, this one is more of a mystery than an action movie, and although I gather it sticks closer to Ludlum's novel (you can do that better in three hours than in half that time) it still has a couple of holes that were missing from the Matt Damon feature. It was never hard to follow the feature film but this series sometimes lost me in its divagations. In the film we get a good look at every piece of information Damon uncovers in his search for his identity. Here, sometimes Chamberlain acts on intuition.The lack of rehearsal time and character development shows too. Two times, in Part I, someone mentions how good Chamberlain is at fighting and killing people. But he's not particularly good at it. He gets the crap beaten out of him several times. And when he pulls a hidden gun from his sock and blows his captor away, it's something any routine Private Eye could do. The magisterial mano a mano combat in the feature film required extensive choreography and rehearsal. It was evidently based on karel maga, the most brutal form of martial arts. We were treated to some practice in it while I was in boot camp, only it didn't have a name then. Here's one of the lessons. If you're in a fight for your life, you use whatever objects are at hand -- ball-point pens or blankets -- and you can't lose if you simply pop the other guy's eyeball out with your thumb, as if it were a grape. That's what a professional assassin would learn. Chamberlain, on the other hand, seems to know nothing of this. His natural form is the fist fight, like those you've seen in thousands of other movies. Easier to learn and to choreograph, therefore easier and faster to shoot, and therefore less expensive.Chamberlain's conception of Bourne's character is different from Damon's. Not necessarily worse than Damon's, but different. Chamberlain's Bourne is constantly puzzled by what he's being put through, and shows an occasional cranky mood. Half the time he's unsure of himself, uncertain about what to do next. And the writers have him (and Jaclyn Smith too) talk to themselves quite a bit so the viewer can keep up with his thoughts and the emotions that accompany them. "What am I doing here?" Or, "That CAN'T be true." Or, waiting for someone to answer a phone, "Come on! Come on!" Damon's Bourne acts almost entirely on instinct. He seems to remember more of how to behave like a prey animal, and he remembers how to speak French and German. He strides quickly from place to place and he reacts impulsively and with skill in situations of violence. He's entirely aware of his surroundings and their potential, while Chamberlain is befuddled by them.The miniseries, like the film, was shot in European locations and captures well the chill drizzle of a continental winter in Zurich and Paris. Not a bad effort, all things taken into account.

alfo This is one of the best espionage/thriller ever produced on television. It's a shame that this production ended on television and not in the big screen during its released in 1988. Although, it's understandable because during those times television was definitely much "bigger" than the movies....plus the stars Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith were the sort of royalties of U.S. television -- dubbed King & Queen of Miniseries.Excellent performances which was awarded with nominations from the Golden Globe and Emmy Awards. This is true to the book. If you're going to watch the movie version with Matt Damon make sure you see this one first...