Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass team up again and they've brought their shaky, handheld camera along. It’s Jason Bourne in a non-Jason Bourne movie, but it stands right up there with those films. Based on Rajiv Chandrasekran’s book, it takes place during the early days of the Iraq war. Damon is Army Chief Roy Miller, baffled by poor intelligence that has so far led to squat in the WMD department. He soon finds himself in the middle of two opposing agendas.

The cop a week away from retirement. The cop forced into corruption to support his family. The cop so deep undercover that he doesn’t even know who he is anymore. Clichés? Sure. But Antoine Fuqua’s police drama “Brooklyn’s Finest” is a gritty and compelling film, made all the better by three actors who find the humanity in their characters.

Throughout, the suspense is hardly bearable. “North Face” is a thriller, no mistake about it and only the most unemotional viewer will not identify with the climbers. The contrast between the scenes showing the four men in their ferocious determination to make it to the top despite nature on a rampage and the leisurely crowd at the hotel couldn’t be harsher. Every time we think that our fingers, blackened by the terrible cold, are about to fall off, we’re allowed to catch our breath in these opulent rooms, in front of a large fireplace, with well-trained waiters pouring wine, carving roasts and cutting cake and a pianist playing the latest popular songs.

As the film’s isolated hero and patsy, McGregor is silently intense, shrewd but vulnerable. He is matched and probably outdone by Olivia Williams as the Prime Minister’s Lady MacBeth, a slick, secretive steel matron losing her grip. Along with a memorable turn in "An Education," it’s been a strong year for an actress who has been missing too long, As the neocon devil, Tom Wilkinson makes every polished word feel like it hides a dagger.