Casino Royale (2006)
Written by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis
Directed by Martin Campbell
Columbia
2006
Rating:


Quentin Tarantino famously spent a year and a half lobbying to direct an adaptation of Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel "Casino Royale," proposing to set the film immediately after Bond's wife is killed in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Tarantino's vision of Bond promised to be hardboiled and emotionally complex, words that have never been used to describe the Bond franchise.

Bond needed somebody like Tarantino to revamp the series before the character was painfully pushed into irrelevance. "Die Another Day," the twentieth Bond installment, creaked and groaned not because of Pierce Brosnan's age but because the film was relentlessly silly, pun-drenched and post-modern, referencing other Bond movies as if to underline how far from his roots Bond had journeyed. Meanwhile the Jason Bourne films have taken the spy genre into the existential realm and staged action scenes that don't require jetpacks and invisible cars to be thrilling. Tarantino never had a shot to direct "Casino Royale" since Bond producers the Broccolis famously insist on using directors from Britain or one of their relatively more recent colonies. Martin Campbell, who directed the only decent Brosnan Bond movie "GoldenEye," was chosen instead, dashing any hopes that Bond would be anything more than a violent, pun-spouting narcissist.

So what a rousing surprise it is to see Campbell and his superb new Bond Daniel Craig rise to the occasion and deliver what is in fact a hardboiled and emotionally complex "Casino Royale." Campbell works with screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis (reminding his "Crash" and "Flags of Our Fathers" critics that he's capable of great work) to subvert the traditional Bond structure, invest the characters with depth and largely eliminate the puns and gadgetry.

From the opening sequence it's clear that "Casino Royale" will be different from previous 007 outings. Since "Goldfinger" the Bond films have opened with a bang involving elaborate action. "Casino Royale" opens in black-and-white with Bond sitting in a chair and remembering his first kill, a messy, vicious effort far removed from the smooth killings associated with the secret agent. The title sequence, usually a place to ogle over a woman's silhouette, instead features Bond's shape. The film then rushes headlong into action with a breathtaking, Parkour-inspired "free running" chase scene that sends Bond sprinting and jumping over cranes.

"Casino Royale" only gets better, although not necessarily because the action gets grander. The film succeeds where 20 other Bond movies have failed by turning 007 into a flesh-and-blood person instead of a stylish, government-sanctioned serial killer. Bond fans were displeased at the casting of Craig because he's blond, has Clark Gable's ears and is something less than debonair. And yet Craig more aptly fits Fleming's description of Bond as "ironical, brutal and cold" than any other previous Bond actor. Craig brings real gravity to a Bond who's just learning what it means to be a double-0, and he learns his lessons the hard way.

This time around Bond isn't after a criminal mastermind but a banker named Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) who's attempting to win back the terrorist money he lost by playing a high stakes game of Texas Hold 'em poker at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. Bond is the best card player in the service so M (Judi Dench) reluctantly sends the "blunt instrument" after Le Chiffre. Bond is accompanied by Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) to make sure he doesn't lose millions of dollars to Le Chiffre and thereby inadvertently cause England to bankroll terrorism. Vesper is a different kind of Bond girl. Green's intelligent performance makes Vesper a woman who's not so easily bedded. With a name that's Latin for "Bringer of Dawn" and once referred to the planet Venus, the goddess of love, it's no surprise Bond eventually finds he has "no armor left" as he falls for Vesper.

Bond has never been more vulnerable, and with vulnerability comes real danger. The final set piece of a collapsing building and rushing waters is all the more gripping because it's also deeply moving. Not since "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" has there been such real emotion in a Bond film.

During the opening sequence, the man about to become Bond's second kill asks of Bond's first victim, "Made you feel it, did he?" Bond's bloody knuckles prove the man did, and the same is true of "Casino Royale." By the time Craig utters the immortal words, "Bond. James Bond," there's real loss to them. Bond has finally become the 007 everyone wants, but the road he took to get there is an unexpectedly emotional one, a journey that visibly leaves Bond shaken and the audience stirred.

Posted Saturday, January 20, 2007

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