Quantum of Solace

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



The Mission

Following directly on from Casino Royale, 007 (Daniel Craig) starts chasing down leads connected to the mysterious and powerful organisation that employed Le Chiffre and drive Vesper Lynd to betrayal and death. He finds evidence of a conspiracy of high-ranking figures, and uncovers a plan to use a puppet government in Bolivia to exploit the country's water reserves for profit.



Jimmy Bond Yo!

James Bond already has a reputation in the espionage world as a particularly hard nut to butt heads with, and eventually gets suspended for going too far. He has a callous attitude towards Vesper's death in Casino Royale but M (Judi Dench) believes that he's blinded by an inconsolable rage. Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric) refers to Bond as 'damaged goods' and MI6's records refer to him as 'difficult to control'. Bond's quest for revenge makes him sympathetic to Camille Montes' own vendetta, and he offers her practical advance about attempting her first kill. Despite his caustic attitude to Vesper he keeps her necklace on him at all times, and when the time comes to enact revenge on her betrayer he lets go of his pain and admits that M is right about Vesper's love for him. He comes out of the other side of his rage as a stronger man, with his humanity (only just) intact.



Bond is particular about what alcohol he drinks, and refuses to stay in a poor hotel - preferring to risk his cover being blown by staying somewhere more upmarket. He can speak Spanish, fly a cargo plane, and poses as an employee of 'Universal Exports'. He actually smiles (which seems like a big deal for Craig's Bond) when he asks retired agent Mathis to help him. He's secure and pragmatic enough to cradle Mathis when the older agent dies, and speaks honestly to him. He's also enough of a realist to not even bother asking an assassin any questions after stabbing him and waiting for him to die.



Craig continues his self-assured portrayal of Bond without much fanfare. A lot of the vulnerability and youthful exuberance of Casino Royale has gone, replaced by a cold and almost shellshocked state that drives him onwards with an unstoppable momentum as he hunts down Dominic and the Quantum organisation. His best moments are those that require him to interact with other characters in a way that doesn't involve violence, though these are very few and far between.



Villainy

The name of the terrorist organisation is revealed as 'Quantum', and the few further details we get about them suggest that they're very much an updated version of SPECTRE from the earliest Bond films: all-powerful and motivated purely by money. They deal with all governments and have no political affinities, and are well-established enough to even have sleeper agents in MI6. Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) returns from Casino Royale to represent the group, but he's a fairly bland character by neccessity so he doesn't make much of an impression.



Quantum of Solace mainly focuses on Dominic Greene (Mathias Almarac), a seemingly-legitimate businessman with connections to Quantum. He's a small frog-eyed man with a penchant for casual tourist-ware (he must shop at the same place as Jack Wade from GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies). His multi-national company is called Greene Planet, and his plan is to finance a Bolivian dictator in exchange for control of the country's water supply. He's influential enough to have had the previous Bolivian leader killed for not cooperating. He rather extravagantly has an MI6 agent killed by smothering her in motor oil (in a homage in Goldfinger).



Greene's main henchman is Elvis (Anatole Taubman), a tall doofussy-looking guy with a bowl haircut. The character gets very little development or screentime, but (according to Taubman) Elvis once lived on the streets and was brought into Quantum by his cousin Dominic Greene. The Bolivian dictator that Greene wants to make a deal with is General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio), an exiled tyrant with a history of barbaric behaviour and a fondness for raping and killing women.



Buddies and Babes M implicitly trusts Bond even when she has to suspend him. She's still as hard and humourless as ever, isn't above torture, and worries that 007 will go on a personal vendetta. She still has a mentor-like relationship with Bond and by the fim's end it becomes clear (mainly from the way Bond talks to her) that she's the closest friend he's ever had (at least in terms of the franchise's history).



Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, making a return appearance) is now bearded and more world-weary than when we last saw him in Casino Royale. He doesn't like the idea of the U.S. doing business with Dominic Greene, which influences his decision to lie to his superiors in order to protect Bond. He can speak Spanish - a far cry from the ineptness that characterised Leiter in the 1960s and 1970s.



Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) also returns from Casino Royale. Bond previously thought him to be a traitor but is now convinced of the agent's loyalty. Mathis has retired but comes back to service as a personal favour to Bond, in recognition of the difference between Bond and other agents, and also in recognition of Bond's pain over Vesper.



Camille Montes is an ex-Bolivian secret service agent chasing General Medrano. The General killed her family, so she seeks to kill him in revenge. Other than this motivation, she's fairly forgettable - and Bond doesn't even bother to sleep with her! He does however take a mentor-like role of advisement when he realises she has similar psychological scars to himself. Bond also works with Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton), an inexperienced MI6 agent sent to bring Bond back from Bolivia. Fields doesn't really feature much in the film though as she's killed off fairly quickly.



Locations

The prologue opens in Italy, with Bond cutting it up amongst the cobbled streets and marching religious types while taking in the Siennese architecture. The rest of the film's time is divided between Haiti and Bolivia. Both countries are portrayed fairly unglamourously, which is perfectly in keeping with the gritty and more realistic tone of the Daniel Craig Bond films. The big showcase location, the Atacama Desert in Bolivia, is held back for the climax.



Gadgets and Tricks of the Trade

In keeping with Casino Royale's realism and the idea of starting things from scratch, there aren't really any gadgets to be seen. Bond is able however to open a hotel door by using a credit card. He also knocks out a Greene Planet security guard at the opera, hides him in a disabled toilet, and uses his earpiece to listen in on a Quantum meeting.





Licence to Kill

Okay... Bond shoots a guy in a car chase (causing said car to crash) and shoots a double-agent when an interrogation goes wrong. He dispassionately stabs an attacker in the neck with the same attacker's own knife, shoots several thugs who chase him at the opera, and drops a man off a rooftop (the man actually survives the fall but gets shot by another of Greene's men). He also shoots some corrupt police officers, bullies a plan onto some rocks, and shoots three men in the final attack on Greene's Bolivian headquarters. And finally, demonstrating a rather sick sense of humour, he leaves Dominic in the desert with only a bottle of oil to drink.



Shag-Rate

Bond hooks up with Strawberry Fields almost immediately after she comes to Bolivia to take him back to the UK. In what seems to be a first for the series though, he doesn't actually shag the main 'Bond girl' - Camille Montes - at any point... the furthest their relationship gets is a kiss at the film's end.



Quotes

JAMES BOND (on his deal with the CIA): I promised them Le Chiffre, they got Le Chiffre.

M: They got his body.

JAMES BOND: If they wanted his soul they should've made a deal with a priest.



CAMILLE: Friend of yours?

JAMES BOND: I have no friends.



MATHIS: When you are young it is easy to tell right from wrong, but as you get older it gets harder - the heroes and villains get all mixed up.



JAMES BOND: Oddly right now you're the only person I can trust.

MATHIS: That is odd.



CIA GUY: If we refused to do business with villains we'd have no one left to do business with.



JAMES BOND (referring to M): He tried to kill a friend of mine.

CAMILLE: A woman?

JAMES BOND: Yes, but not what you think.

CAMILLE: Your mother?

JAMES BOND: She likes to think so.



How Does It Rate?

Alright, I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first. Some longtime Bond fans have complained about Quantum of Solace not being true enough to the spirit of the series... these criticisms also stem partially from the idea of rebooting Bond (which was implemented in Casino Royale) and from the way the film prioritises surface-action. I have to confess that a lot of Quantum of Solace does feel like endless action with very little character interplay. How many times can director Marc Foster do that trick where he intercuts Bond-related action with a contrasting event happening nearby (EG. In the Italian prologue, and later at the Opera)? I think once would've been enough. There isn't really much in the way of real drama, aside from a few small (but welcome) scenes that acknowledge the series' newfound sense of continuity (such as any scenes involving Mathis and M). I think Quantum of Solace's deficiencies also come entirely from the fact that it feels too much like the middle act of a bigger story... which is why it's also the shortest of all James Bond films and tends to focus on things of not much consequence.



Having said all that, I still think this is a good addition to the franchise because it continues to break new ground and push things forward. The schemes of Quantum are actually based on real events regarding the privatisation of water in Bolivia, and this echoes concerns about multinational companies exploiting third world countries while the Western governments of the world stand by and do nothing about it (while receiving kickbacks or making deals to stay neutral). I love this aspect of Quantum of Solace, and I'd love to see Bond cutting in further on this kind of realistic evil - it makes him feel like a real hero, one that interacts with real villainy. It's ballsy for the series, and it's like the producers are putting their money where their mouth is.



Also tying into this is the changing new-world political landscape that the series is now exploring in place of the Cold War. Bond now deals with dodgy businesses and corrupt governments, and even MI6 and the CIA are no longer portrayed as entirely trustworthy anymore. The film tries to offset MI6's guilt by blaming certain actions on a higher level of command (IE. The UK government!), and uses the character of Leiter to explore the hypocritical and conflicting foreign policy of the CIA. I love the way that the Quantum organisation is like a more realistic version of SPECTRE as well, they come across as exactly the way a financially-motivated terrorist organisation should (as opposed to the fascistic holy fervoure of SPECTRE in the 1960s, which made zero sense in regards to their motivations). The plans of the bad guys in Quantum of Solace, for perhaps the first time in a James Bond film, actually seem plausible!



I also like the new level of depth in the relationship of M and Bond in both Casino Royale and this film. It's a completely different dynamic in the Craig Bond films to previous entries in the series, and Dench in particular seems to appreciate how much more seriously the script now treats these characters. One thing I've noticed though in these two last films is that there's now a central dilemma at play in the construction of Bond plots - if you move towards this new level of realism is becomes problematic to have Bond engage in as much action as he does while remaining a legitimate MI6 agent. The result is that he's constantly pulling in an opposite direction to MI6, the Government and M... I'm just not sure if they can sustain this level of friction in a credible manner for a third film. There does seem to be a sense though that despite the stripped-back 'Year Zero' approach the series is moving slowly towards the traditional kind of Bond film - evident here in the increasingly over-the-top action sequences. It's not quite there yet but in comparison to Casino Royale there's definitely a few steps in that direction. If they do decide to bring back the gadgets, Moneypenny, Q and more outlandish villains, then it will be interesting to see how they integrate all this with the feel and tone of Daniel Craig's era of James Bond.



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DIRECTOR: Marc Foster

WRITER/SOURCE: Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Joshua Zetuma. Based on characters created by Ian Fleming.

KEY ACTORS: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Olga Kurylenko, Mathias Almarac, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton, Anatole Taubman, Joaquin Cosio



RELATED TEXTS

- The title Quantum of Solace comes from a James Bond short story by Ian Fleming, but there is no similarity between the actual content of the story and the film.

- The events of this film follow directly on from Casino Royale.



AWARDS

BAFTAs - nominated Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.