The Bourne Identity (1988 Film)

The Bourne Identity is a 1988 television movie adaptation of Robert Ludlum's novel The Bourne Identity.

The film follows the storyline of the novel, with a run-time of 3 hours 5 min. With commercials added, the running time was extended to four hours, and the film was first shown on ABC in two two-hour installments over two nights.

The film's plot exhibits some differences from that of the novel. The undercover identity of Jason Bourne is simplified. In the book, David Webb, because of his amnesia, believes himself to be Jason Bourne and an assassin called Cain. In the film, the name Cain is left out. In the film, Carlos is shown to be responsible for killing Webb's wife and child, which is not the case in the novel. Alexander Conklin is accidentally shot by his own people when attempting to kill Bourne; in the novel he survives and appears in subsequent novels. In the book's ending, Carlos escapes in the confusion, whereas in the film he is gunned down at the last moment by Bourne/David Webb. Because Carlos is the primary antagonist of the original Bourne trilogy (although only The Bourne Supremacy had been published when the film was produced), this essentially ends the story with one film.