Casino Royale (2006) - Insanely Long Preliminary Comments
Four years ago I left the theaters a broken man - filled with self-disgust and loathing. The franchise that I had obsessively loved for nearly my entire life had produced a massive steamer that can be ranked second only to Gigli in the annals of cinematic stench. Should I try to spark my tiny brain into generating the electric impulses necessary for me to pull myself into the mephitic ooze of the nearest tar pit so I could molder away in blissful forgetfulness? No. Suicide was not the answer. Better to lower my head in shame and slink off like a sewer rat into the fever swamps of my imagination and fervently pray that the franchise would die. But then to the fetid dampness of my crypt-like resting place came the news - possibly borne on black wings from Hell itself. The franchise lived! And this fact perched on my shoulder like Edgar Allen Poe's raven - cawing "Nevermore" and denying me my craved for surcease from sorrow as long as I lived. Yet another actor! Some unknown British blonde guy! And in the ultimate existential insult - some goofball who is actually younger than I am! It was as if I had become the eponymous portrait in the story of Dorian Gray and I was decaying away heartsick, saddened and embarrassed while the franchise itself became even younger and more gratuitously insulting to the intelligence.
Then came the day - November 19, 2006. Furtively purchasing a ticket while clad in dark glasses and a trench coat I slunk to the back of a Sandy Springs theater. Why was I here? Did I want to finally abandon all hope and joy? Did I want to confront the soul shattering possibility that we are all inconsequential specks cast adrift in a cold and uncaring universe? The lights dimmed. And what I witnessed was the second most miraculous resurrection in history. Well, third actually because that Lazarus thing is definitely on a higher plane too.
OK. For the sake of you dear readers, let's ratchet back the rhetoric just a bit. And for the sake of myself let me ask His forgiveness for comparing a Bond film to his far more spectacular handiwork. Simply put, Casino Royale is the most exciting Bond movie I've seen since Dalton's first time at bat in The Living Daylights. And even Dalton's movie had the benefit of being viewed through some pretty rosy glasses. I was in college, ready to graduate, best friend in attendance, our best girls by our side. We were filled with hope and optimism about the future. It was hard not to be swept away by the movie while at the same time we dreamt about the limitless vistas that lay before us. Now I'm old and wizened. Hopes and aspirations have turned to ashes on the tongue. Muttering away in a ratty bathrobe in the corner, I seek to deaden the pain and disappointment with cheap liquor. OK. Again with the rhetoric. What I'm trying to say is that the Bond franchise has once again nearly 20 years after my salad days reinvented itself, deeply touched the heart of a now middle-aged man, and produced what will easily be counted as one of the best films in the series. I can't easily slide it into my countdown at this early date, but I'm sure it would still be yet to appear in my currently aborted list.
To make this movie even more miraculous, its greatness comes from an entirely unexpected direction. Given the release of this movie and its attendant hype, most people are probably aware that Casino Royale was Ian Fleming's first novel. Over fifty years ago when Fleming was looking around to sell his stories to Hollywood, this book slipped into the possession of some TV producers. The result of this I am ashamed to say I've never seen. The inestimable Agony Booth has the rundown. Rights to Fleming's other books were purchased by the film company that produced the seminal Dr. No and the rest is cinematic history. The surrendered rights to Casino Royale fell into the hands of a bunch of freaky 60's movie making squares that fantasized themselves as being in tune with the hippy-dippy, pot smoking acid droppers of that era. The result was a completely ridiculous "comedic" version of the story that's only memorable for providing another unwarranted forum for future step-daughter shtupping pervert Woody Allen. Once again I defer to the Agony Booth to provide you the whole sordid story.
Legal machinations and corporate restructurings, however, have led to the rights to Fleming's novel falling back into the hands of the Bond production team. Here was the one Fleming novel not used for plot points, or simply in the shakier adaptations as an excuse for a movie title, and those rights have enabled them to draw on heretofore unavailable source material. To be honest, however, until today I've never really regretted the loss of Casino Royale to the legal sharks. I always thought that it was a novel that would require a lot of embellishment before appearing on screen. Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me would of course win the prize in the "How the heck can we make a movie from this?" sweepstakes, but his first novel also has peculiarities that don't reappear in any of his other books. I think that Fleming was understandably quite tentative when he wrote his first book. He was well aware that his foray into fiction writing might be immediately forgotten and I think he felt the need to wrap the entire story up into one complete package. At the same time, however, Fleming was so deeply and personally involved with his creation that he also must have desired a chance to write a sequel or two. I defer to the great Mark Steyn to elaborate on this point and not only do justice to Fleming's rhetorical gifts but also point how much of the Bond cannon was hinted at in this early work.
The story found in Fleming's first novel is quite straightforward and easily summarized in a paragraph or two. The head of a French labor union is actually on the payroll of a bunch of dirty rotten Commies - the Russkie organization SMERSH that will reappear in subsequent books. The man has named himself Le Chiffre - English translation The Number - as a cutting protest against bourgeois materialism the likes of which has not been seen since some parents named their kid Seven in those old Charlie Brown cartoons. Le Chiffre has lost his patron's money in a series of bad investments and his only hope in recouping the losses is to win at some high stakes card games at Casino Royale. The British Secret Service sees a chance not only to destroy Le Chiffre but embarrass the Commies by sending Bond to clean him out at the casino. Aided by a fellow agent, Vesper Lynd, and the Americans in the person of Felix Leiter, Bond does indeed wipe out Le Chiffre. Le Chiffre doesn't give up easily, however. He kidnaps Vesper, entices Bond to follow and captures him as well. Bond is viciously - and quite memorably to those who have read the book - tortured to get him to turn over the winnings. But Le Chiffre's treachery catches up with him and Bond survives. Other than the odd exploding Bulgarian, this represents all the book has to offer in the way of action. At this point we are at most 2/3rd's into the book and the final chapters involve Bond recovering from torture, extensively (perhaps far too extensively) discussing his job and his future with a friend, and a very sad little plot twist that I'll tap dance around given that the movie is still in theaters.
Now while I could stick to the letter of my claim about the difficulty of adapting Casino Royale by pointing out all the emendations made by the filmmakers to the original story, I'm humble enough to say that I was entirely wrong in spirit with my prediction. At a clearly defined point in the film, Fleming's plot is reproduced in astonishingly faithful detail. Fleming fans who have read his first novel will be amazed at how every single dramatic event and plot point from that book have their clearly defined counterpoints in the movie itself - right down to the unmentionable torture and the downbeat ending itself. One would need to dust off the nearly forty year old On Her Majesty's Secret Service if one wanted to watch a Bond film that so closely followed the plot of one of Fleming's books. This fidelity to Fleming's book is the reason that I've tended to blanch at the discussion of this film as a "reboot". It’s bad enough that this has led to a lot of cringe inducing comparisons between Bond and that action-movie johnny-come-lately Batman. After all Bond was clearly a military man - most likely the British WWII equivalent of a Navy Seal - who simply decided to continue to serve his country after the war ended. He didn't decide to flounce around the city after dark with a teenaged boy while dressed up in tights. He really doesn't need an "origin" story. And while I think that the conceit that this may be Bond's first mission gave an unprecedented chance to the filmmakers and Daniel Craig himself to abandon all of the more risible elements of the franchise and they used this chance to tremendous advantage, I also think that the movie's success is most clearly due to how respectful it is to Fleming's story. After all they could have created an "origin" story out of whole cloth where we find out that Bond's ability to hypnotize Halle Berry with his crotch is due to a bad case of polonium irradiated crabs he picked up in Vladimir Putin's Russia. I doubt that such an approach would have revitalized the saga as this movie has, however.
The movie's teaser introduces its conceit by showing us Bond's first two assassinations and earning his 00 distinction as a result. While they don't go down quite the way Fleming described, the number of kills required to earn the 00 prefix is definitely part of the canon. While these particular incidents don't appear to drive the future plot in any way, it is still strongly implied from this point forward that Bond is a very newly minted 007. Unfortunately we'd have to again go back twenty years to Licence to Kill to find a less memorable theme song than the one that follows the teaser here, but at least we aren't being purposely being tortured by it as we were when the geriatric Madonna started caterwauling four years ago. After the teaser, we watch as the villainous Le Chiffre shows up in some sub-Saharan hellhole promising to safely sequester the funds of some African warlord types. The cash is not even fully loaded aboard the truck, however, before we seen him planning to embezzle the funds for his own investment schemes. Perhaps simultaneously, Bond himself is in some other sub-Saharan hellhole surveilling a known terrorist suspected of plotting a future attack. While the surveillance goes bad, one spectacular foot chase latter Bond finds himself in possession of the terrorist's cell phone and is able to determine that a recently received call originated from the Bahamas.
Bond heads to the Bahamas and discovers that the man that called the terrorist from the earlier scene is the swarthy Dimitrious - a man that has been named 2nd Runner-Up in the Annual Bahaman Eric Bogosian Look-Alike Contest for 4 consecutive years. In an absolutely fantastic bit, Bond totally embarrasses the guy by winning his car - a classic Goldfinger-era Aston Martin - from him in a card game. There's something almost mystical in Fleming's obsession with games, as if the cosmos itself intervened to overturn the laws of chance so that evil always left the table (or golf course) vanquished. The busted Dimitrious is then seen visiting Le Chiffre himself and we learn that he is the middle man - hiring mercenary terrorists at Le Chiffre's behest. Since Bond has iced the African terrorist previously hired for the job, Dimitrious is off to Miami to hire someone new. Bond learns of the destination from Dimitrious' wife and takes off in hot pursuit.
In Miami Dimitrious spots Bond following him and initiates a truly ill-advised physical confrontation. One dead Dimitrious latter, Bond is again in possession of a cell phone that allows him to identify the terrorist that has been contracted by Dimitrious. As an aside if you yourself are a betting man or woman take that mortgage payment and put that money down with your bookie, because there is no way that this movie is not going to win Best Picture at this year's Wireless Technology Awards. The terrorist's destination is the Miami airport and a new experimental passenger aircraft that is being unveiled by the thinly-veiled Bond universe version of that bloated socialistic taxpayer-funded European aircraft company that dropped the Airbus on an uncaring world a couple of years back. Because of a very tasteful decision on the part of the screenwriters, the experimental plane is actually on the ground outside a hanger when the attack takes place. I'm grateful for this because I still find midair terror a little too traumatizing after 9/11. In any event, longer story given below, the attack is foiled by Bond and the plot of the novel proper begins.
The novel's plot is introduced when the uber-annoying "M" jets into the Bahamas to p@ss and moan about the body count that Bond is racking up. OK, I see that. After all, he's killed all of two people - one undeniably in self defense and the other arguably so. The Western World hasn't seen such carnage since the Allies firebombed Dresden. Is MI6 supposed to operate under U.S. Army rules of engagement in Bagdad now? Are 00's supposed to sit around idle at their desks at Universal Exports so as not to appear culturally insensitive? In any event, the old harridan lays out the motivation for the subsequent action. Le Chiffre has used the money he received from the African warlords at the start of the movie to buy puts on the stock of the aforementioned European aircraft company. Said puts are now worth zero and Le Chiffre has some serious 'splaining to do to the machete wielding madmen he stole money from. In a desperate bid to save his keister, Le Chiffre is hoping to win a no-limit poker tournament at Casino Royale. Bond is to enter the tournament in an attempt to bust him. The screenwriters have actually done a pretty clever polish here, because there was no completely solid reason in Fleming's book as to why Le Chiffre shouldn't have simply been greased. The only reason given for playing the guy at chemin de fer was that if he were to be killed outright, he would end up a martyr to the Commie cause. Here the game is much better motivated in that MI6 hopes that Le Chiffre will be so in fear of his life after losing that he will squeal about his knowledge of terrorism to save his skin. Not only does this tighten up the plot a bit, but it makes Bond's torture at Le Chiffre's hands later in the movie even more disturbing. As Le Chiffre points out, even if Bond doesn't break and give him the money, MI6 will still put him in protective custody in return for what he knows.
I hate to indulge too much in speculation given my complete lack of imagination, but there are also some intriguing hints as to where the franchise will go from here given the setup so far. For example Le Chiffre was introduced to the African warlords by another man tagged as Mr. White simply as someone who was a master money launderer. Just as in the novel Le Chiffre is at best a conspiracy middle-manager, not an actual mastermind of same. A tool of the Commies in Fleming's book, Le Chiffre here is a tool of a more shadowy organization. It is almost certainly the case that the African warlords that Le Chiffre embezzled from are not involved in any way with the attempt to blow up the aircraft at the Miami airport. As the money man behind terrorist acts, however, Le Chiffre misappropriates miscellaneous funds in his charge and uses them to place bets on the aftermath of those attacks. Bond most decidedly insures that Le Chiffre's luck runs out, but the bigger organization that is responsible for the terrorist machinations remains mysterious. Is there something in fact somewhat SPECTRE-esque about those behind Le Chiffre? Only the next few movies will tell.
At this point what can I say other than that every detail of Fleming's plot is so loving recreated that it is easier to discuss the differences rather than the similarities? Very early on I winced when I heard that they were changing the game played from chemin de fer to Texas hold 'em. I took this as evidence that once again the filmmakers were trying to be trendy/and or further dumbing down the series. But now I must confess that even were my suspicions about the filmmakers correct, the change to poker plays out tremendously well on screen. Even those who have no personal familiarity with baccarat variations will probably remember from earlier Bonds in which they appear that they are blackjack type games where the goal is to reach 9 rather than 21. All betting is up front, usually only one card can be drawn and there are rigid rules about whether one can draw that card or not given his current hand. I really can't imagine that unless you're Rain Man and can count cards, there is all that much more to the game than pure luck. Poker however, especially in its hold 'em variant here, requires a large element of skill. It seems as describing the mathematics of the game has become something of a modern cottage industry with scores of books describing how to calculate odds of certain hands and how to relate those odds to the expected winnings from a pot and how to use game theory to randomize bluffing strategy. Thus as the game between Bond and Le Chiffre unfolds here it is clear that the game has become a battle of wits and not just a matter of who is luckier, and I think this adds tremendously to the tension of the gambling scenes. In addition, the nature of the game allows some foreshadowing aplenty. Bond rather arrogantly takes pride in his ability to read his opponents at the gaming table, but in retrospect it becomes clear that his ability to read others is sorely lacking in other far more important situations.
The exploding Bulgarians fail to put in an appearance here, with the attempt on Bond's life during the game being made with poison. The poisoning itself plays out quite well on screen, but does introduce the only instance of a somewhat implausible gadget. Poisoned with digitalis, Bond finds himself going into cardiac arrest and must use a defibrillator to restart his heart. I have to ask however - why in the world do defibrillators come standard in tricked out Secret Service Aston Martins? Do the 00's have to shuttle Dick Cheney around during their downtime? A pair of very dissatisfied clients of Le Chiffre shows up after having learned about Le Chiffre's embezzlement. These guys don't show up in the book, but there inclusion is truly inspired in that their visit results in some great acting moments on the part of all the major participants in this enterprise. Other than this the film wraps up in a way almost identical to the way the novel wraps up. The truly nasty torture scene is faithfully replicated and the disheartening ending, while far noisier here, is in spirit identical as well. The last line of dialogue in the book - one that any Fleming fan will be able to tell you on the spot - appears here as well, although just as in the novel Bond doesn't really mean it here either.
Because Casino Royale has been so cleverly conceived, Daniel Craig has taken his place alongside Rush Limbaugh and Alton Brown as one of the luckiest men alive. The only way he could have failed to appear acceptably Bondian given the script would have involved his stumbling around the set going "Melvin glavin!! La, la, la, nice lady!!". To put Craig's success down to serendipity, however, is to slight the masterful performance that he has turned in. No matter how good the current project, Bond carries 40+ years of cinematic baggage and has been portrayed now by 6 different actors (more if you count crazy stuff like the TV and the comedic versions of "Casino Royale") not to mention the original source material the oldest of which is now more than 50 years old. The infernal horned one must surely have whispered in Craig's ear and told him to strut and preen and try to be the hip, cool, impossibly suave and indestructible iconic caricature that Bond has too often become in the movies. Craig, however, has done the exact opposite. Far from being some kind of monument, Craig's Bond is a well fleshed-out likeable human being. Cocky, but humbled more than once. Very tough, but softly tender. Literally deadly serious, but willing to joke - even at his own expense. Happy and carefree when things turn out well, petulant and angry when things go bad. In short Craig's Bond is an ordinary man sharing all the faults and foibles that all the rest of us have. While it's far far too early to buy into hype about the best Bond ever, I think that Fleming himself would be enormously pleased. Fleming's stories are so enjoyable because Bond comes across as a generally likeable person, not some eccentric weirdo like his rival in the iconic character sweepstakes Sherlock Holmes. Anyone who's read Fleming knows the little human touches - Bond's love of boozing it up and joking around with his buddies, Bond's fear of flying, Bond's vexation over women drivers, the less than savory opinions about foreigners - a grab-bag of feelings good, bad and ugly that find counterparts in all of us.
Craig has drawn me back to theater 3 times now, and each time I found myself enjoying his performance more and more. Bond has an unfortunate history of making smart-a#* quips in the movies - a tendency that turned into downright smuttiness during the Bronsan era. Craig however is genuinely humorous - deprecatingly so. Bond during his first run-in with Vesper childishly wants to prove his sagacity by launching into a bunch of boorish intimations about her personal history. After getting cut off near the knees and asked how he found his lamb dinner he answers "Skewered - one sympathizes". Credit the screenwriter for good dialogue, but its Craig’s willingness to be so deservedly chastened that makes his Bond so real. I also loved the bit where Bond tries to tell Vesper that she has to go undercover with the name "Stephanie Broadchest" just to get a rise out of her. Juvenile to be sure, but clearly born of affection. One of my favorite more serious bits comes after Bond has blown it at Casino Royale and lost his stake. Other reviews have focused on Bond's request for a martini. Asked whether it should be shaken or stirred he replies that he doesn't give a damn. The joke is actually less interesting than the framing story. Bond doesn't care about the booze because he thinks he's failed in his mission. The next scene sees him grabbing a steak knife and going off to try to kill Le Chiffre in some nasty hand to hand combat. Timely intervention by the CIA prevents this course of action, but forget the martini. Who doesn't completely empathize with his desire to lash out?
Some of Craig's best work actually comes when he's showing his good-natured everyman side. A great moment comes when upon arrival at Casino Royale, Bond demands that Vesper wear some revealing dress he brought because he thinks that she can put the other card players off of their game. Vesper shoots right back and demands he wear the jacket she picked out for him so that he plausibly resembles a high-stakes gambler. There is no doubt that the origin story intrudes here with the hint that Bond is some sartorially challenged rube that needs instruction on picking out the proper dinner jacket. What I like so much about this however is the more down-to-earth interaction between Bond and Vesper. I can't help but view Bond's request as again being a good-natured one. He is all but saying that Vesper's so attractive that she can cloud men's minds just by walking into a room, and I don't see that the dress he picked out is all embarrassingly hootchie mamma. And what rational man wouldn't treasure the opinion of an intelligent and attractive lady when it comes to his wardrobe? I'm telling you fellows that unless that jacket is made of red and white flannel and sports a bow tie that lights up and spins like a propeller, I'm going to put in on and be extremely grateful for the assistance of a lady friend. I also love the dinner enjoyed by Bond and Vesper in the aftermath of his win against Le Chiffre. In another perfect touch by the screenwriters, the crazy drink that Bond thought up in Fleming's book plays a major role in the movie. Its not so much the fusel oil laden liver poisons that make up that concoction that compel, but rather the goofy pride Bond takes in creating the thing in the first place. And as exhibit A in the case for Craig's great acting, watch how he clearly shows how much he's fallen for Vesper by going from preening over his crazy drink to being needingly self-deprecatory to possessing a sad wistfulness because he's long realized that Vesper's necklace was given to her by her lover and that there's a good chance he'll never see her again now that the mission is done. The piece-de-resistance from not only Craig, but Ms. Green as well, comes in the aftermath of the vicious fight between Bond and Le Chiffre's unhappy clients in a stairwell that spreads to involve Vesper as well. Bond enters the hotel suite afterwards and finds Vesper sitting in the shower fully clothed, disgusted and nauseated at the violence and her participation in same. Watch how perfectly Craig plays this. First he simply sits down next to her in the shower himself without initiating any contact until she is ready to do so (And he's fully dressed too you pervs). He's unsure in fact as to whether or not anything he says or does will only make things worse. Only after some time passes and Vesper does reach out to hold him does he tenderly put an arm around her shoulder and hold her. I've been racking my brain and I'm still unsure as to whether I can point to another moment in the whole history of the series that shows Bond so down-to-earth, caring and chivalrous. I can think of some moments again as far back as On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but even there Bond's more tender moments with Tracy came after some encounters decidedly less than chivalrous on his part.
I'm a compulsive reader of movie reviews, so I'm always afraid that my opinion is influenced by those more talented than myself. Skimming through reviews of Casino Royale however I'm surprised by how many critics have called Craig's Bond nasty or cold-hearted or brutish. As one can probably tell from the above, I'm largely of the opposite opinion and I'm not entirely sure why this impression is as widespread as it is. Is it due to the fact that Bond has become so risible that any remotely serious approach is going to look "gritty"? Is it due to the fact that the first third or so of the movie is so action heavy and Bond so death-dealing that the more human elements introduced later are not as clearly remembered? Or is it due to the fact that Craig has a forehead that most unfortunately for him brings haunting visions of Ted Danson's Frankenstein like physiognomy to moviegoers? Critics will have to answer these questions for themselves, but I'd point out that Bond doesn't do anything in this movie that we haven't seen him do numerous times in the past. And Craig again so clearly wears his heart on his sleeve that every act of brutality is again wrapped by incidents and intimations that lets us see Bond's feelings and emotions while events are taking place. Make no mistake. Bond isn't slipping into his jammies here and enjoying a warm glass of milk after a hard day of antiquing. Bond is a tough S.O.B. possessed of whatever callousness is necessary for a man in his line of work, but just as Fleming tells us he doesn't enjoy killing people there is no evidence in this movie that Craig's version enjoys it either. We watch Bond's first two kills during the teaser, but the same teaser clearly shows how tough the first one was. Bond does coolly quip about how easy the second is after getting the drop on his second hit, but is there any question that it is more out of a sense of enormous relief than a cruel streak. It's true that Bond is disparaged in various ways as uncaring or as a blunt instrument or as soulless or as bad but I note that it is only by characters that are either a complete pain-in-the-#ss ("M") or are not completely reliable (Solange, and to a lesser degree Vesper), so the source of the comment needs to be kept in mind while judging their overall validity. After a few viewings I do have to admit that Bond really didn't need to gun down the terrorist he was chasing early in the film, but even there I bet that he thought his chances of living through the whole thing given his situation were slim enough that he might as well take the rotten b*st@rd with him.
On the subject of brutishness, or more accurately caddishness, I have to discuss some more fascinating subtext that the movie introduces. The character of Solange is quite literally a throwaway one. (Incredibly esoteric aside - Solange is the name of the female lead in a Fleming short story "007 in New York"; a story so obscure I've never managed to get my hands on a print version of it.) Solange here is the wife of the unfortunate Dimitrious and is aggressively hit upon by Bond after he wins her husband's Aston Martin. I think it is clear from the ensuing scenes and some later dialogue in which Bond tells Vesper that she's not his type because she's single, that we are supposed to view Bond as a cad who preys on married women so as to easily avoid commitment. There is, I'm sorry to say, a Fleming-esque element here because I distinctly remember an offhand reference in one of the novels to the effect that Bond was carrying on with one or more married women in London. What's so interesting here, however, is how truly uninterested in Solange Bond seems to be even after asking her back to his place. Even with the little bit of smooching and pillow talk, Bond spends most of the time asking questions about her husband. After he learns Dimitrious is off to Miami, Bond walks out on her altogether. It comes across not as some caddish compulsion to hit on married women as much as a hit or miss try to get information useful to the job at hand. Solange has already displayed some decidedly uncaring proclivities vis a vis her husband, so Bond may have just been asking what he had to lose in making a pass. And couple this indifference to Bond's later interaction with Vesper; feelings often tender and affectionate, but not so much that he'll accept her refusal to help him beat Le Chiffre. It’s clear that what matters most to Bond here is the job. In fact I'm not even sure the job takes place of pride versus his desire to win in general - at cards, in a foot chase, at tracking down the location of M's cauldron, etc. Is it possible that women come in a distant third to Bond after winning and his job? Yes. I admit that's absurd in a way because statistics show that approximately 93.8% of all men's thoughts do indeed concern woman, but once again the subtext humanizes Bond here in a very original way. I can promise you ladies that as much as we think about it, we are not all satyrs and we don't all aspire to be horny, rump-slapping old lechers in either comedic (Moore), loutish (Connery) or sleazy (Brosnan) incarnations. There is no better indication as to just what an oyster the world is to Craig than the interaction here between him and the leading ladies. If he has truly been able to abandon some of the lizard-brained sexual obsessions that have burrowed into Bond's movie persona like Fleming's rhetorical death-watch beetle of the soul, he will be able to take his characterization absolutely anywhere that he feels necessary to make it uniquely his.
The wonderful freedom granted to Craig to create a real down-to-earth human Bond was also extended to Mads Mikkelsen to create the same in an adversary. Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre is light years away from changing his DNA and never sleeping or building his own space station or cross-dressing, cloning doubles and launching diamond powered satellites or any of the other wackier extremes of Bond villainy. In a sense, he's not even all that villainous. He promises to launder money for terrorists and expropriates it for his own investment schemes. When said schemes go bad, he finds himself so desperate for money that he sets up a high-stakes poker game in the vain hope of saving his bacon. I don't think Mikkelsen particularly matches the description of Le Chiffre in Fleming's book. While I haven't read it in a while, I remember feeling that the novel's Le Chiffre was middle-aged and maybe overweight (What the heck is a stone people??) - more of a Goldfinger/Gert Frobe type than Mikkelsen. But Mikkelsen's performance is so riveting it's a moot point. Somehow the man with his precious little bow-shaped moue and his lightly Brylcreemed Euro-trash comb over simply oozes loathsomeness every time he's on screen. Indeed so effortlessly and scene-stealingly loathsome he is, I fear for his future. I shudder to think of the poor man strolling through the grocery store in the future shopping for herring or lutefisk or some other cold-packed Scandinavian delicacy while all the other patrons aware of this movie are seized with disgust and hatred at the sight of him.
The screenwriters have inflicted Mikkelsen's character with an unfortunate malady that involves weeping blood, but he has stolen the scenes he's in long before this wrinkle is introduced. As faithful as this movie is to Fleming, I wonder if the screenwriters introduced this as a nod to him. Fleming's villains are frequently described as having a glint of red in the eye or having some weird white around the pupil. Neither is cinematic, however, so the eye problem here might be the best approximation. The inhaler that he occasionally uses is also a welcome nod to Fleming as his Le Chiffre used an inhaler as well. Le Chiffre prides himself in maintaining an emotionless, icy, creepy exterior and Mikkelsen uses the prop well to convey the character's uncertainty and hesitation. The little extrusions of humanity from Le Chiffre are also very well done. The oft mentioned African goons that have touched so many lives in this story also bring out some great acting from Mikkelsen. They first appear in Le Chiffre's hotel room after a break in the poker game, choke him half to death and threaten to chop his mistress' arm off. This results in another one of the great humanizing moments in the movie when Le Chiffre, who is not a man of action, abandons the facade and croaks out in despair at how helpless he is to prevent the mutilation of his mistress. The scene of course is Bond's torture at his hands, and the Craig/Mikkelsen duel is one for the ages. Bond of course is beaten and nearly broken - merely trying to make it to the end without giving Le Chiffre information. Le Chiffre is just as desperate. Wonderfully much of Le Chiffre's dialogue comes directly from Fleming's book, but while he tries to stay calm his threat is belied by the fact that he is sweating and falling apart just as comprehensively as Bond. And finally after a movie long attempt to maintain a calm exterior after a host of setbacks the volcano bursts and Le Chiffre loses it. He prepares to subject Bond to the same insult hinted at in the novel, but meets his fate before he can carry through. Mikkelsen does a fantastic job as he progressively breaks down over the course of the film and there is a clear intimation that he is just as completely beaten as Bond is at the end of this very disturbing sequence.
While it pains to me to have to say it, the third leg of the Bond-Villain-Bond Girl stool is not quite as sturdy as the first two. In all fairness to Eva Green, she was faced with two very big complications in inhabiting the role of Vesper Lynd. As Fleming's first female character, she is nowhere near as distinctive as those found in his subsequent works. Fleming's novel just doesn't give all that much to hang a characterization on. Secondly, the plot of the movie and novel require a degree of opacity on Vesper's part. Still I can't help but wonder if Ms. Green found herself chained by the same movie conventions that Craig and Mikkelsen cut loose from. I just get the feeling from her initial appearances that she felt as if she had to strut out as some hyper-confident super-glam ballsy broad that could give as good as she got instead of simply trying to come across as a regular person. Her first appearance is particularly egregious as she meets Bond on the train to Casino Royale. Bond undeniably lets loose with a bunch of boorish intimations about her private life, but it’s almost understandable after being hit with her "This is such a stupid idea. It can't possibly work with an eyebrow-ridged Neanderthal like yourself involved." attitude. The unpleasantness continues upon their arrival in Montenegro. Bond blows his cover by checking in at the hotel under his true name rather than the Beach alias that's been set up for him. Vesper again goes into a snit about what an egomaniac he is, etc., etc. At this point I just had to prevent myself from shouting out at the screen - "Vesper, hon, you work for the Treasury! What the h@ll do you know about undercover espionage?". I can just see how it could have all gone so much better. How about a general skepticism over the plan and Bond himself, but a desire to do whatever she can to help nonetheless? Even the anger over the busted alias might be understandable if she felt that it put her in danger personally. Why not show a little fear over that fact instead of primly chewing Bond out over it? I couldn't help thinking back to Die Another Day when Halle Berry's ditzy flooze Jinx flounced out of the water to ogle Bond's package and talk dirty before jumping into bed with him. Now with Vesper, Bond has to put up with the kind of ice queen treatment he receives every year from "M" during his performance review. Is there no middle ground here?
On the other hand, there are some fantastic touches that Ms. Green brings to the performance as well. I've previously mentioned Bond and Vesper's fight with some African goons in a stairwell. One of the goons takes a gainer off a high floor, but the second is harder to dispatch. During a brutal hand to hand fight between Bond and the goon, Vesper herself intervenes to prevent the goon from getting hold of a dropped gun - undoubtedly saving Bond's live in the process. No whimpering and helplessly crying "James, James" here and nothing ridiculous like whipping out a cyanide pen or cigarette laced with knock-out gas - just a desperate and terrifying attempt to help followed by nausea and self-disgust. Here's that middle ground that I so desired earlier. No trembling leaf fainting from the stress and no super-woman distaff Bond hoisting a leg into a simacrulum of a karate kick - just a regular person thrust into the most stressful of situations and doing her best to cope. I've already described the aftermath of this above with Bond doing all he can to comfort the understandably sickened Vesper. Here in one of the best scenes in the movie, Ms. Green's performance is just as perfect as Craig's. Her performance throughout the denouement is also quite good. I particularly liked her visit to the battered Bond during his recovery. Bond - lucky to be alive and still a man - is totally pie-eyed over Vesper after her visits to him. That opacity I referenced earlier now comes into play, and Ms. Green wonderfully projects how torn up she is about offering the poor dope any further affection. The longer the movie ran the more I found myself liking her performance. I just wish it had been so much more to start. By coming across as so abrasive initially, she doesn't end up with enough screen time to dig herself out of the hole. On the other hand we'd still have to go back to The World Is Not Enough to find a female lead as remotely interesting, and she was actually the villain of the piece!
A few words about secondary characters are also in order. First, I devoutly wish that the "re-invention" of the franchise had resulted in Judy Dench's annoying "M" getting the boot. I barely tolerated her during the Brosnan era because the overall quality of those films was already shaky enough that "M" was the least of their problems. Here in a very good film, however, it is totally inappropriate for her to be stomping around like Darrin Steven's witchy mother-in-law from "Bewitched". Fleming's "M" was crusty to be sure and tended to get Bond involved in all sorts of personal matters on his off time, but he didn't despise Bond - the only feeling Dench seems to be able to express. The man is out risking life and limb for queen and country every week. He doesn't need to suffer some obnoxious old crone reaming him out every five minutes. Frankly, I'm afraid there's some scene stealing going on here. "I'm Judy Dench. I'm an Oscar nominated actress. I need to be the center of attention in every scene I'm in." As secondary as M's character has come to be over in the years in the Bond films, such grandstanding is just not warranted. We'll probably be stuck with her for the next film as well, but I'm hoping that her intrusion in same is minor. Interestingly enough Bond himself shows her next to no respect throughout the film - at one point breaking into her home and stealing her passwords to access confidential files. Perhaps he's just as sick of her as we are.
Felix Leiter is far better served by Jeffrey Wright's portrayal. Fleming fans have long been acclimated to the fact that Leiter's character would never be as important to the films as he was in the novels. He's probably been played by at least 9 or 10 different actors in as many movies and none of the actors remotely resembled the character of the books. Wright is actually the second black actor to play Fleming's blond Texan. His portrayal is well suited to the film, however. Just like Craig, he plays it all straight - no "M" style over-the-top histrionics from him. And even though his inclusion in the plot differs from Fleming's novel (Leiter was in on the casino scheme from the very beginning in the book), I'm sure the interaction between him and Bond here would have made Fleming smile. Leiter here is trying himself to beat Le Chiffre but finds himself hopelessly out of his league. What does he do? He turns to the British of course! Leiter cheerfully admits to Bond that he's hopeless, and is more than happy to play the role of Mr. Moneybags. Some critics of Fleming have maintained that this was Leiter's role in the novels all along - an American foil not quite competent to do anything himself but always on hand to aid those who were the real masters, the British. I think that this implication by Fleming was subconscious at best, but I can't remember another film that more clearly hinted at it. All in all I would be more than happy to see Mr. Wright return. I think he could most probably handle a bigger role in the plot quite effectively.
A third character I'm going to refer to only obliquely as I don't want to engage in spoilers while the film is still in theaters. Readers of Fleming's book, however, will immediately see the disservice done to someone that plays a rather large part in the novel's plot. The only real complaint in fact that I have about the film's adaptation of Fleming's novel is the demotion of this character to red herring. I'm not even sure if its a case of being too clever or not trusting the audience to follow the plot. This isn't Agatha Christie, so there's really no reason to mislead anyone. At the same time, however, I wonder if the screenwriters were trying to desperately draw attention to the fact that treachery was taking place because they didn't think the audience would pick up on it. In a film this good, however, I can't make too much of this disappointment. Its most unlikely than it can propagate forward into another Bond film.
Oh yeah. There's some action oriented material in this movie as well. As the verbosity above makes clear if all they could do this time was muster the usual desultory batch of gunfights and car chases that made the Brosnan era so mediocre, I would have still tremendously enjoyed this movie. This film, however, incredibly marks the return of the fantastic stunt work that was a staple of the series prior to the 90's. Where the h@ll have these stuntmen been for the last 16+ years? Had Saddam Hussein been holding these guys hostage in his spider hole since Gulf War I? The fantastic foot chase that starts the film is a steal at 5 times the admission price alone. Apparently the African gentlemen, Sebastien Foucan, that plays Bond's quarry in this chase has made a discipline of this "free running" and all I can say is I hope they paid the guy enough to retire. The sequence is pure kinetic genius as these madmen leap around, over and through obstacles, scramble up the sides of buildings and jump from height to height. What makes this so exciting I think is that unlike tedious gunplay or even my far more favorite fist fighting, none of this action requires any creative editing. All they had to do was point the camera at these lunatics and start the film rolling. They've done this in the past with one-offs like the leaps that start The Spy Who Loved Me or Goldeneye, but here the effect continues to accumulate as if all these moments from earlier films were strung together one right after the other. Now I have a list of phobias that would rival that of Monk himself in its length but numero uno is heights, so much of the adrenaline produced in me from watching this sequence stems from my visceral fear at watching someone simply standing on a great height. And leaping from height to height!? Forget it!! All I can say is that were I stuck standing on that crane I would be desperately clinging to a strut and blubbering like a baby, not jumping to an adjacent building! I awake in a cold sweat from nightmares that find me standing high above the ground on a steep staircase with no hand rail! And as the duxelles on the Beef Wellington, the sequence ends with a bit of gunplay that is actually exciting for a change - largely because the limited number of options a lightly armed man has when confronted with a score of others with automatic weapons is pretty realistically portrayed.
Not content with creating a series highpoint, we're off to a nail-biting staple of the genre done to perfection. After catching up to Dimitrios' man at Miami airport, Bond sees him drive off in fuel truck bent on blowing it up under the experimental aircraft that's on site. This necessitates that Bond leap on top of the moving vehicle and hang on for dear life. Admittedly the ensuing bit is somewhat derivative; not only of Dalton's last Licence to Kill but also of the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark as Bond has to use his purchase on the fuel truck to get to the front and highjack it. Still derivative doesn't mean bad - especially given the fantastic bit that sees a leap from the top of the truck to the tarmac followed by a roll away from an oncoming vehicle. And while we’ve seen all the difficulties attendant on leveraging a desperate purchase on the exterior of a vehicle into an actual invasion of the cab - not to mention the problems involved in starting a fight to the death with the driver - that doesn't mean that those difficulties aren't worth seeing laid out before us once again. It's also good to know that in the aftermath of 9/11 they have apparently encased all jet fuel trucks in depleted uranium or something, because its clear that its just not possible to ignite that highly flammable cargo no matter how many full-speed collisions with other vehicles the driver gets into.
Now if you've read any of my other reviews you know by now that I loves my fistfights. I think fistfights are very difficult because they are critically dependent on good editing to be effective. If the director just points and shoots and everything is printed, its going to be clear that no one is landing any blows. If the editing cuts become too severe however, you just can't really tell what is going on and the sequence doesn't satisfy. The one mild criticism that I can make of this movie is that the fight editing unfortunately seems to have come down a little too much on the choppy side. The absolute best brawl in this film is Bond's exceedingly difficult takedown of his first assigned hit. As Bond and his mark hurl each other through stall partitions and heads are cracked across porcelain urinals and sinks in some Czech men's room there's no doubt that some serious hurting is taking place. Bond's forcing the guy's face into a sink and drowning him into unconsciousness is another rivetingly nasty touch. The problem however is that too much of this is intercut with scenes from Bond's confrontation with his second mark. At one instant we see some guy's head smacking into a towel dispenser or something and an instant latter were watching some low key urbane dialogue in a posh office. Granted the cross-cutting results in a very creative excuse for the "rifle-barrel" gunshot that has begun these films for so many years, but I wish the fighting had not only been extended but had been more of one piece. I've already extensively discussed the ripples thrown through the picture by Bond's takedown of a pair of African goons in a stairwell, but the fight itself is a touch mundane. Its not that it doesn't have its moments. Some of the grappling around the machete is exciting, but it just lacks that certain something that would set it apart from the pack. Please understand that this criticism is offered only in the spirit of being as constructive as possible because Craig's Bond has within him the seed of an epochal savage knock-down vicious brawl the likes of which we haven't seen since Connery's Bond strangled the life out of Red Grant on the Orient Express. I just want to see that flower sprout. If by any chance the crew that choreographed, staged, filmed and edited the fight between Bond and Trevelyan back in Goldeneye weren't on board for this one, may I suggest that EON get them on board for the next one. That fight was not only the highpoint of Brosnan's tenure but one of the better in the franchise's history, so I'm hoping that Craig gets the same chance.
The final admittedly somewhat overblown action set-to takes place after Bond chases some of Le Chiffre's former associates into an old Venice house in the process of renovation. The only thing that apparently keeps the building from sinking into the water is a battery of floats near the waterline. I guess that there was no way we were going to make it to the end of Bond film without some gun battles, and in this case some of the flying bullets tear into those floats and the resulting loss of buoyancy causes the house to begin sinking into the canal. I'm very conflicted in my feelings about this concluding set piece. We've got the usual stretches of actors firing off hundreds of blanks at each other in the typically vain effort to generate excitement. On the other hand we've got some intriguing little wrinkles this time out, like Bond picking up the motion of a henchmen in a piece of broken glass and using this to his face-smashing advantage. The gorge rises after we watch another unfortunate henchman get pulped when an elevator shaft falls on him. And as the melee proceeds until the last henchman is deceased, a nail gun also intrudes to bring misery and disgust to everyone inside the sinking house. Unfortunately, some of the editing weaknesses that marred the earlier fights in the film arise here as well. The gunplay that takes place is, of course, just as uninvolving as always even if it does take place in a sinking house, and as with earlier instances of grappling that which takes place here as the house sinks comes down a bit more on the confusingly edited side. I hate to once again bring that lightweight Batman into this review, but the whole sequence did put me in mind of the choppily edited fights between Batman and the Joker's henchmen on the very similar belfry set in Tim Burton's first movie. In the last analysis, however, this scene has such an intrinsic importance to the plot that the fact that its not a franchise action highpoint is not of great importance. To do justice to Fleming's novel, the event that ended the book had to be made suitably cinematic. Fleming in his novel was able to explain everything through the literary expedient of a composed letter, something not easily adapted to screen. The overarching concern surrounding this scene, therefore, is the commitment to Fleming's story so any criticisms or disappointments surrounding it are by definition picayune given that the scene so markedly serves it purpose.
Now we come to the end of my insanely long comments and its probably clear that I was shaken to the core by this movie. So impressed I am by Casino Royale, I find that my feelings and thoughts about earlier movies and earlier Bonds are undergoing major changes. My regard of the master himself, Ian Fleming, has expanded a hundredfold now that I see that a faithful dedication to a novel that I thought weak, tentative and uncinematic has produced one of the best films in the franchise's 40+ years history. Wherever you are Ian, please forgive one of your biggest fans for being so quick to underestimate your talent. From the sloughs of despond where I fervently wished to never see a new Bond film again, I'm now counting the minutes until I can see where Craig, et. al. go from here. Three times I've left the theater as giddy as a man who - I don't know - has won 150 million dollars at a high stakes poker game after being dealt a straight flush. And dare an old man hope that this film has cultural implications? Now that the knowledge that this film is so close to Fleming's work has been widely disseminated, will a legion of younger Bond fans - those who have never seen a Bond film in the theater that included anything more than a passing reference to one of the master's works - actually pick up one of Fleming's novels? I have no statistically valid evidence that this might be occurring, but I have anecdotes. A good friend of mine (one of the usual suspects), a guy much younger than I, joined me at my post-Thanksgiving get together and I found out that he was so pleased by the movie that he not only sought out a copy of Fleming's novel to read, but picked up a few of the later books to boot. And dare I gloat over an even more personal satisfaction? My wife, surly because I dragged her to the film and cursed with the obstreperousness borne on the X chromosome, refused to believe my claim that a 50 year old novel could possibly be the source of this movie. Only she can tell you the reason for her disbelief. It's certainly implausible to think that a chain-smoking, hard-drinking British semi-dilettante could have sat down in 1952 and written a novel that so presciently predicted shadowy, terrorist organizations that have been responsible for such atrocities as 9/11 that occurred nearly 50 years later. And after nearly 40 years of cinematic Bond (at least post-On Her Majesty's Secret Service), there has never been an ending showing things turning as horrendously wrong for Bond as they do here. Convinced I was wrong as always, she demanded I produce a copy of the book so that she could judge my veracity by reading it herself. Yes, dear friends! This movie has enticed the love of my life into reading one of Fleming's novels for herself and, as much as she continues to feign disinterest, I can see her eying that copy of "Live And Let Die" that I brought out in addition to "Casino Royale". For this reason alone - even though my slide into outright senility continues apace and I'll soon find myself less and less able to recall any of the things I've discussed above - I will always hold this movie dear to my heart.
