Bond, James Bond

Bond: 'One Martini.
Barman: 'Shaken or stirred?
Bond (without a smile): 'Do I look like a give a damn?

This line summarises the take of the latest James Bond film ‘Casino Royale’ by Martin Campbell. All the other Bonds would always have their Martini ‘Stirred, not shaken’; this has been one of the key lines and main trade marks of the sophisticated, phlegmatic, cool agent for decades. Well, guess what, Daniel Craig is not cool. His James is under a lot of stress, starting a new job (he just got his 00 licence after killing his first two villains); he focuses on the job, setting aside sex, fast car and un-necessary Martinis. They are part of the job but he doesn’t really enjoy them. Bond tries his best but people hit him, shoot at him, and poison him. It gets on his nerves. Some Bonds got upset before occasionally. Pierce Brosnan for instance took it personal after being tortured in North Korean jails – but he remained cool. Craig’s Bond is not cool inside.

Unlike all other Bond films over the last 30 years, the film is not saturated with gadgets, cars and explosions ad nauseam. Action scenes are excellent but there are relatively few of them. Story and characters are the stars. The pace is much slower – with long non-action sequences. Not that I despise the classic Bond cocktail of pure light silly entertainment ; but for the first time ever, you get interested by the plot and the characters – early Connery films were charming and classy but were pure ‘exercices de style’. Here we have a no-nonsense hero and story.

This Bond is darker and more violent than ever. I see two influences in the spy genre that have inspired the authors of the new-style Bond. The first one is 24: Craig shares many traits with Jack Bauer; like him he does not talk much or smile a lot; he does not care to kill in a pretty way ; he gets hurt a lot, even tortured and humiliated. A second influence is the Jason Bourne series. The two films of the franchise are among the best thrillers of the last decade: dark, ‘film noir’, without excessive action, and with credible violence. All the opposite of say Mission Impossible 3, one of the worst big action films lately.

Hitchcock quotes

The script and film-making is also influenced by great thriller classics. The first meeting between Craig and Green in a train is a remembrance of the legendary love-at-first-sight encounter of Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North-by-Northwest - and the sexy marivaudage they immediately started. Another Hitchcock tribute is made to Torn Curtain with Paul Newman. In this film, Hitch said he showed a spy killing an enemy spy with in a very special way: much more realistic, i.e. violent. It takes minutes to Newman to strangle the man real-time. Hitch wanted to tell us that killing a man in real life is messy, dirty, ugly, long, exhausting. There are two killing scenes very much like that in Casino Royale: the opening sequence in black and white shows the first ever kill of James. It is anything but easy or glamourous. A sordid fight in sordid men’s toilets, ends with Bond drawing his opponent in a tub. In another sequence, Bond is strangling a man, while the girl is witnessing horrified, incapable of helping.

Bond in love

The most radical new thing is of course that Bond falls in love. In the Bond bible, there is always at least one good Bond girl and – more importantly - a bad Bond girl. The sexy bad girl in particular, a typical male fantasy, is customary to the Bond franchise. But this time, the crazy, trigger-happy female killer - whose best incarnation for me is Famke Janssen aka Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye…. - is totally missing. A first good girl -villain’s wife- is seduced but quickly abandoned - actually before sex. The second girl (Eva Green aka Vesper Lynd) has a much bigger role than any female character in a Bond film before. James and Vesper get involved in a flirt that becomes unusually tender, and ends in a whole hog of a love story.

A dark violent, pessimistic, post 9/11 film, this Bond film is also one of those genre films showing the male crisis. Bond’s masculinity was challenged in the Pierce Brosnan era by the character of M, his iron-lady boss (Dame Judy Dench), but she used to quite like him. Here, she has little esteem or sympathy for him. When he intrudes into her flat she insults him as being a ‘blunt instrument’ from which she does not expect any understanding of the meaning of the missions (men are useless). [spoiler] This time not only Bond falls in love, but he is manipulated by a woman, and ultimately betrayed by her. The final twist shows that she controlled the whole relationship and used his feelings (even if she genuinely loved him). Bad times for men when humiliations like that affect the arguably biggest symbol of ego-masculinity. Bond has been for 40 years the epitome of sexy-tough-yet-macho-bastard around. Now women are the bosses, at work (M) and in love (Vesper) ; even tough guys like James are turning sentimental (he resigns for her) while women are getting cynical. To go further down the down of gender zeitgeist, I would suggest that the next chief villain should be a woman. By the way the main villain here (Le Chiffre) is the major weakest of the film. Both the character and the actor are simply not good enough.

The other weak point for me is the poker scenes. Maybe that’s because I don’t understand poker at all, and it doesn’t fascinates me; and, arguably, it is a directing challenge to make something interesting with a static card game. But still it seems to me that poker scenes are long repetitive, predictable; they lack intensity and atmosphere; photography and directing are deficient. Here the references could (should) have been the classic The Cincinnati Kid with McQueen or the magnificent Hustler with Newman by Robert Rossen.

What else? The cast. Very well done. Despite his nasty nazi look at first sight, I found Craig very handsome, good and convincing. As for Eva Green (the daughter of Marlene Jobert) she is not sexy; she's beautiful. Green succeeds in being breathtakingly beautiful as well as credible sensitive and touching at the same time.

Ah yes, another thing that I like in Bond movies is the tradition of sophisticated, graphically original title sequences. Many films had such strong title sequences in the 60s, and only the Bond franchise is keeping up with this tradition. Here we have good one, a mixture of 2D and 3D CGI work (even if the song is not too that good).

To conclude, I agree with press reviews praising this film as the best Bond in decades and one of the best thrillers in recent years. Could we go a step further and name it the best Bond ever? Difficult to say, and it depends upon what you expect from a Bond film. Early Sean Connery films remain charmingly sexy, non-violent and naïve. They are monuments to elegance and coolness, and still very pleasant to see after nearly 50 years. But they were arguably voluntarily superficial, light entertainment. The latest Bond is more ambitious and (a bit) more complex but, precisely because it embraces many aspects of the 2000s zeitgeist, it may become outdated quite sooner. Time will tell.

So should you go and give nine pounds to see that film?

If you are a Bond fan and an action movie film, yes definitely. Although very sceptical about Craig (I was), most Bond fans and critics have been impressed, and on the whole it remains very much a modernised Bond movie. On the other hand, to be honest, if you are not into action thrillers at all, all the good things I say above won’t be enough make you like it – on the whole it is still a silly spy story.

PS: By the way, keep clear of the ‘Casino Royale’ film of 1967, with David Niven and Woody Allen – this parody of James Bond is embarrassingly not funny.

more cats and dogs

More English sayings involving animals and/or torturing pets

Ants in one's pants
to be very restless and impatient

Have bats in the (or one's) belfry
to be mad or eccentric; have strange ideas

Like a bat out of hell
Fast.

Having bees in one's bonnet

a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
(we have the same one with bears)

The birds and the bees
Euphemistic or jocular. sex and sexual reproduction

As snug as a bug in a rug

Like a bull in a china shop
(we use an elephant for that)

Look like the cat who swallowed the canary
To look proud of ones self.

The early bird catches the worm

Not a cat in hell's chance
no chance at all

Looks like something the cat brought in
to appear dishevelled or bedraggled.

Curiosity killed the cat
Warning about being curious.

DDon't count your chickens before they are hatched

Dead as a dodo (I love the dark humour in this one)
Dead; obsolete; completely washed up

The hair of the dog that bit you
The drink you drink in the morning to get over the drinks you drank the night before. (must be an English thing)

Let sleeping dogs lie
Don't bring up an old issue/topic that will raise tempers or cause an argument

A dog's breakfast
A mess

kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

Knee high to a grasshopper
Small

cannot say boo to a goose
shy

a wild-goose chase
A vain pursuit of something, which, even if attained, would be worthless.

a red herring
False trail.

go the whole hog (I love this one)
Informal. to do something thoroughly or unreservedly

A pig in a poke
a risk, a gamble, taking a chance

When pigs fly
Never. (we use chickens for that)

A wolf in sheep's clothing

As drunk as a skunk (love it)