Casino Royale

(Here be spoilers if you are yet to see the James Bond movies...)



The Mission

James Bond (Daniel Craig) works as part of a team chasing and investigating a network of international terrorists, looking for the source of their funding. It turns out that Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a private banker, is their financial brains, so MI6 recruit the newly promoted Bond to play against him in a high stakes game at Casino Royale, the idea being to drain the network by winning their money off the cocky Le Chiffre.



Jimmy Bond Yo!

A tricky one, this! Unlike previous actors to play Bond, Daniel Craig's portrayal isn't a continuation of the same character. The franchise is rebooted to show a 'young' Bond at the start of his career as a 00 agent. 'James Bond' seems to be his real name, implying that this is a straight reboot as opposed to a new character adopting a codename. We see him as a pre-00 MI6 agent in the pre-titles sequence and we see him achieve his 00 status (with a licence to kill). As 007 he's established as one of the elite, but he's still quite green in regards to using his judgment with his special licence. He exhibits some youthful recklessness and fallibility previously not really seen with the more experienced verison of the character in previous films.



Bond has amazingly sharp reflexes and it's implied that that his background is SAS. He can drive a tractor and carries a rather large Dirty Harry-esque revolver with a silence attached, and his skill as a card player is well known enough for MI6 to send him to Casino Royale for his first assignment. It's hinted that he comes from working class origins, is an orphan (something that has only ever been mentioned in one other Bond film, GoldenEye), and got his university education at Oxford. He seems to really enjoy his job and, despite his impulsiveness, M (Judi Dench) describes him as good at remaining emotionally detached. He takes his first killings in his stride and claims not to have emotional armour, that his cold demeanour is a result of the emotional erosion rather than a shield. He's amused by Vesper Lynd's sharp manner and the way she can keep him on his toes, and decides to save what's left of his soul (buoyed by his love for Lynd) by quitting MI6 after the completion of his first mission as 007.



Due to his lack of experience, he looks more scared than we might expect when Le Chiffre decides to torture him, but is able to take it. The rigours of the job prompts him to drink hard liquor in order to steady his nerves, suggesting that his exploits as a 00 agent are linked to his future drinking. We see a lot of the more well-known aspects of the character come into play in Casino Royale, the implication being that this debut mission is a highly formative part of his life. He wins his Aston Martin in a card game, and whilst beautiful women are drawn to him he doesn't seem quite like a womaniser yet. He's arrogant and egotistical, smart enough to be able to find M's home address and all too aware of the short lifespan of 00 agents. He takes some delight in thinking up his own cocktail, but by the film's end it's easy to imagine how he becomes the more collected single-minded killer that James Bond has been in past films. He takes Lynd's betrayal and death badly, abandoning his previous ideas of resignation and resuming the complete erosion of his soul. By the film's end he's an unstoppable cypher.



Daniel Craig is wonderful in the role, bringing the character alive as a macho powerhouse. The flippant humour of past Bonds contrasts sharply with his more realistic portrayal of Bond as a man with real emotion, an dhe does a great job of playing out Bond's character arc from junior 00 agent to hardened veteran.



Villainy

Casino Royale dispenses with the cliches of Bond villains... gone are the memorable henchmen, gone are the outlandish schemes for world domination. Le Chiffre is an independent money holder for a terrorist organisation. He himself doesn't seem to be a direct part of this group, they're just referred to as his employers. He's Albanian, and a mathematical genius; he likes to show off his skill with odds through high stakes gambling - using the money of his employers rather recklessly to do so. He's sallow-faced, asthmatic, has an unexplained scar over his left eye, and is rather humourless.



Through the course of the film we meet some of Le Chiffre's terrorist associates; the arrogant Mr. Dimitirios (Simon Abkarian), and Steven Obanno (Isaac de Bankole), a Ugandan revolutionary who carries around a disturbingly large machete. None of them really come across as your typical Bond badguys - they seem more like real-life criminals and thugs. A character called Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) also appears as a middle man between these characters and the mysterious unnamed terrorist organisation.



Buddies and Babes

MI6 is now firmly run by accountants and publicists, with M as the middle-person between these interests and the department's functionality. M is played again by Judi Dench but as it's a straight reboot of the series the performance doesn't neccessarily need to be the same as her previous portrayals of the character. She's cold and very well-informed, calling to mind her introduction as the character back in GoldenEye, only this time the situation has been reversed - Bond is new to the job and now she's the veteran. She misses the Cold War and it's simplicity, suggesting that she's been doing this job for some time (and directly contradiction her appearance in GoldenEye). She's married and her name starts with an 'M'... she thinks Bond is too cocky and presumptuous but also treats him like a student, offering advice and willing to be impressed when he gets things right.



Bond's main assistant during his casino mission is Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a government accountant assigned by MI6 to control the funds allocated for Bond's card game with Le Chiffre. Bond infers that she's an orphan like him, a career-climbing woman of sophistication trying to get ahead in a man's world. She has a slightly antagonistic relationship with Bond right from the start and doesn't take 007 very seriously as first. They eventually fall in love but she betrays him by funnelling the Casino Royale winnings back to the terrorists and kills herself afterwards. She wears a mysterious and unexplained pendant around her neck that becomes more important in the following film, Quatum of Solace.



Bond also finds an ally in Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), a CIA agent also after Le Chiffre. Leiter's card skills aren't that great so he offers to fund Bond when MI6 won't in exchange for custody of Le Chiffre. Leiter in Casino Royale is likeable and friendly, much like previous portrayals of the character (and gets about as much depth out of the script). He also returns in Quantum of Solace, where the character is expanded on a little.





Locations

The film opens in Prague to show Bond earning his licence to kill, shooting the old world location at night and in black and white to evoke a noirish tone remniscent of The Third Man an dother post-war spy films. There's also an early scene set in the Ugandan jungle but Bond doesn't feature in it. Other early sequences show Bond at work in Madagascar (represented via a mongoose-snake fight gambling ring and some construction sites), the Bahamas and Miami Airport. The bulk of the film takes place in Montenegro, with some glossy location work in the Czech Republic showcasing the country's architecture and countryside. The fillm then relocates to Venice for the climax, with a spectaculr scene involving the collapse of a Venetian building into the sea.



Gadgets and Tricks of the Trade

Bond is completely gadget-free but has a few clever tricks up his sleeve. He drops his gun to lull some Nambutun soldiers into a false sense of security before pulling out a second gun and using it to create a diversion by shooting a gas cylinder. He later creates another diversion at a Bahamas country club by setting off about a dozen car alarms, and tries to de-poison himself by inducing vomit with salt water an dusing a defibrillator to kickstart his heart.



Licence to Kill

Bond makes his first two kills in the film's prologue - shooting an MI6 traitor (Malcolm Sinclair) and strangling/shooting a man in a public bathroom. His first post-00 kill attracts some ire from his superiors due to the fact that the man he shoots was meant to be captured alive (and also gets killed inside a consulate!) Bond stabs Mr. Dimitrios with the man's own knife, and hides a bomb fuse in the pants of a terrorist so that said terrorist accidentally blows himself up. He also throws a Ugandan mercenary down a stairwell and chokes Obanno to death. During the film's climax he knocks two thugs into the crumbling foundations of a Venetian building, uses another as a shield against bullets, electrocutes one more and shoots his last opponent through the eye with a nailgun.



Shag-Rate

Perhaps reflecting Bond's youth, he only beds one woman in the course of Casino Royale, Vesper Lynd. They make love at least twice towards the end of the film. Bond gets close to shagging Mrs. Dimitrios (Catarina Murino) earlier in the film but leaves her wanting when the opportunity arises for him to get the jump on her husband.



Quotes

SOLANGE DIMITRIOS: You like a married women don't you, James?

JAMES BOND: I like to keep it simple.



JAMES BOND: Don't worry, you're not my type.

VESPER LYND: Smart?

JAMES BOND: Single.



JAMES BOND: Do you want a clean kill or do you want to send a message?



VESPER LYND: I'm your money.

JAMES BOND: Every penny of it.



JAMES BOND: In poker you never play your hand, you play the man opposite you.



VESPER LYND: You know what James, if all that was left of you was your smile and your little finger you'd still be more of a man than anyone else I know.

JAMES BOND: That's because you know what I can do with my little finger.



VESPER LYND (turning away from Bond as he tries to kiss her in front of the other poker players): This is me in character pissed off because you're losing so fast we won't be here past midnight. Oddly, my character's feelings mirror my own.



VESPER LYND (to Bond as he tries to get into elevator): Take the next one. There isn't enough room for me and your ego.



LE CHIFFRE: I'm afraid your friend Mathis is really my friend Mathis.



JAMES BOND: I'll not consider myself to be in trouble until I start weeping blood.



How Does It Rate?

Quite possibly the most solid James Bond film ever made. At first it feels like there isn't realy anything all that interesting going on and that the film is riding along on the stylistic gimmick of putting James Bond into the 'real world'. All the superficial hallmarks of the film franchise are gone - Bond isn't cracking bad jokes, there's no gadgets or crazy vehicle sequences, and the villains are just thugs and dodgy accountants. In this sense it's a modern adaptation of the first James Bond book that simply pretends that no other James Bond films have ever been made before. I like this idea but I can't help but think it could've been a period piece as well in order to be even more faithful to Ian Fleming's book Casino Royale (as was Tarantino's idea when he put himself forth as a possibe director of the project). By setting it in the present day and ignoring the conventions and traditions of other Bond films you risk comparison to other run-of-the-mill action films. I'm not sure it stands up completely based on that criteria alone.



But as far as reboots go, it's pretty damn good! Bond fans will appreciate the way it collects together the central strands of Bond mythology to create an origin story. It subtly shows us the formation of his personality - his misogyny, his ability to kill without compunction or regret, his toughness and overall manliness. It ends a lot like On Her Majesty's Secret Service - with the idea being that this time the producers are going to follow it up properly (whether or not this pans out is a different story), and the newfound sense of realism and emotional depth gives the series a much-needed and long overdue sense of weight.



Parts of it are highly stylised (mainly the prologue) and it looks ultra-cool. The stunts, whilst scaled down compared to some previous Bond films, are highly impressive due to the fact they're being staged with minimal special effects. The parkour-influenced foot-chase in the Malagasy construction site is amazing, and in this sense the realism is 100% successful in reinvigorating the series and getting the audience to invest in the character of James Bond again. It's stripped back, like almost every aspect of the film. A great metaphor for Casino Royale is the scene where Le Chiffre tortures Bond... he says that he's never gone in for elaborate torturing because he feels the simpler methods are just as effective (if not more) at getting the job done. This could be used to sum up the entire film. It's very effective at re-branding James Bond for a new century by getting back to basics. Let's see how long it lasts.



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DIRECTOR: Martin Campbell

WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis, based on the novel by Ian Fleming.

KEY ACTORS: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Simon Akbarian, Catarina Murino, Isaac de Bankole, Jesper Christensen



RELATED TEXTS:

- The novel Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, the first of his James Bond novels.

- This novel has been previously adapted twice, but not by the 'official' James Bond filmmakers. The first time was as an hour long episode of the TV series Climax!, featuring Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. The second time was as a parody, Casino Royale, in the 1960s.

- Martin Campbell previously directed GoldenEye, which also re-jigged the series with some success in the 1990s.

- The events in this version of Casino Royale lead directly into Daniel Craig's second James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

- It could probably be argued that the success of Batman Begins and The Bourne Identity had something to do with the shift towards a more realism-based approach to the series.



AWARDS

BAFTAs - won Best Sound. Also nominated for Best British Film, Best Music, Best Visual Effects, Best Actor (Daniel Craig), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Production Design and Best Adapted Screenplay.