A good movie, a good Bond, more real, human; Giannini is a very welcomed addition but I’m really not a fan of Eva Green, so this Vesper story didn’t feel as touching as it should have been.
This Bond is more “real”, meaning that he gets tired, he gets hurt, he ruins his clothes, he can get so annoyed that he doesn’t care anymore if his drink is shaken or stirred, he gets poisoned and tortured and feels it… nothing like the perfect, indestructible Bonds of the past, their shirts were always white and ironed…
The only thing about this movie that didn’t get to me was the love story, I was actually taken by surprise when he turned out to be truly in love with her… but again, maybe it’s because I couldn’t ‘feel’ this Vesper’s emotions like I should have.
No title song, credits run under the song ‘you know my name’.
“Daniel Craig as Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007 in Casino Royale”
Are there more details about her betrayal? We ever see this boyfriend or hear anything about it? In this film, I mean…
Anyway, the plot.
Bond is sent to Prague to kill Dryden, a corrupted Department chief who has been selling secrets. To become a 00 agent, he had to kill two people but I’m not sure if Dryden was the second or the third…
It seems like he was the second, so M did not, in fact, send a 00 agent to kill him, only an aspiring one :lol
In Uganda, Mr White and his organization introduce Le Chiffre to a “freedom fighter”, and the latter trusts him with his money, something like 3 cases full of it, cash. Le Chiffre is a “private banker to the world’s terrorists. He invested their money and gave them access to it wherever they wanted”, in M’s words.
Now, I’m no stock broker and I don’t want to be, so if anyone will ever read this might explain one point to me ,if you can do it in simple words: I know that Le Chiffre wanted to sell stocks now knowing they’d go down so he’d buy them back cheap, and I seem to understand that he doesn’t actually have the stocks himself. He borrows them? From people who know about it or is it between him and the bank or stock market? Is it stocks he was managing for his clients? Le Chiffre waits to have the Uganda’s millions to call what I think is a bank to sell “another million shares of Skyfleet stock”, is this because the bank wants the money as insurance? Will they wait to see that the money is actually accredited before selling? And keep it when he loses it? Still, where do the stocks come from?
Anyone explaining simply tis practical detail will receive a heartfelt thank you ^_^
So, even if he’s told that he’s “betting against the market” because this stock will surely go up, Le Chiffre insists because he plans to ensure it will go down.
In Madagascar, Bond works with a rookie or something because this Carter keeps touching his ear to hear Bond so the bomb maker they’re trying to capture realizes they’re onto him and runs. It’s a long chase, a bit of an athletic challenge, and it was a fun moment when the guy tried to shoot Bond but it clicked empty so he threw the now useless weapon at Bond’s face but Bond swiftly caches it with his right hand and throws it right back at his head :lol:
The chase goes on, the guy knows his parkour moves and he actually reaches the “Nambutu embassy” before Bond can catch him. Bond follows him anyway and tries to get him out of it, but when he’s cornered, Bond shoots him dead and blows up part of the Embassy to escape. Problem: he was caught on camera, of course, it was an Embassy, and the papers write “British Government agent kills unarmed prisoner” and there’s even a picture. M is of course quite upset, both with the Ministers or whoever it was questioning her, the Committee: “who the hell do they think they are? I report ot the Prime Minister, and even he’s smart enough not to ask me what we do”, and she calls them “self-righteous arse-covering prigs”, and also with Bond: “I give him double-0 status and he celebrates by shooting up an embassy” and “in the old days, if an agent did something that embarrassing, he’d have the good sense to deflect. Christ, I miss the cold war” :lol: but she only calls Bond stupid and deranged :-)
Bond found a phone in the bombmaker’s bag. He shows up at M’s place (M is her real initial, Bond knows her name). Following the phone’s lead, he goes to Nassau. At the Ocean Club, a rude guy takes him for a parking valet so he parks the man’s car by crashing into another car… he should have crashed its front, not the back. At the club, they keep disks of the security camera recordings, and he finds who answered the bomb maker’s call. Seeing his car on the video he asks the receptionist for the guy’s name with an excuse: it’s Mr Dimitrios. Bond not only found out M’s name and address, but also her password to access the agency’s “secure website”. Why is Le Chiffre listed as deceased?
Bond joins Dimitrios’ poker table and wins it all, even Dimitrios car. An Aston Martin.
Le Chiffre is upset that Bond killed the bomb maker because he had to do a job for him but Dimitrios can find him another guy. Bond seduces Solange, Dimitrios’ wife, to get information and to have fun with a married woman, “it keeps things simple”… for him, I’m sure.
But he doesn’t do much, I think, he leaves her alone to go after her husband… but how can Bond get to the Miami airport at the same time? If Dimitrios was already on the plane while he was with Solange?
Well, he is there, they see each other, Dimitrios has a knife, Bond uses it to kill him. Bond follows the guy that took Dimitrios’ bag, he finds out that Skyfleet’s new airplane, the largest in the world, is being unveiled at Miami’s airport. Bond’s guy should blow it up but he stops him and the guy blows himself up instead. Le Chiffre lost 101.206.000 dollars.
Solange was tortured and killed, Le Chiffre wanted to know who talked and ruined his plan, and she was the only one alive. M tells Bond that Dimitrios worked a lot with Le Chiffre, “a bit of mathematical genius and liked to prove it by playing poker”. A chip or whatever is put into Bond’s arm. M says Le Chiffre has set up “a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro, ten players, $10 million buy-in, five million rebuy, winner takes all. Potentially 150 million”
And Le Chiffre doesn’t have all that money, but he needs it because he’s “been playing the stock market with his clients’ funds” and of course “they’re not gonna be too happy when they find out it’s gone”.
So they need him to lose, so to give him sanctuary and interrogate him.
Right now Bond is totally “emotionally detached”, showing no remorse for Solange’s death. He goes to Montenegro. He meets Vesper Lynd from the British Treasury, the one with the money. Bond states he’s very good at reading people. He tries to read her, but I have no confirmation he did it right.
Bond is an orphan and she says “that makes perfect sense, since MI6 looks for maladjusted young men that give little thought to sacrificing others in order to protect Queen and Country”.
They banter on the plane and again in the taxi; Bond disregards his cover and gives the hotel his real name. I think M sends him a car because he came by taxi but when a woman says something’s been left for him, he opens a car and finds files and an emergency kit. And a gun too.
He meets his contact Rene Mathis, who faked proof to get the Chief of police arrested because he was in Le Chiffre’s pocket. Bond gives Vesper a dress, and she did the same, giving him a better dinner jacket. Bond: “How… it’s tailored” - Vesper:”I seized you up the moment we met”.
Each player must set a password, so if he wins he’ll authorize the transfer of money to the account he chooses.
Bond and Vesper keep bickering because he starts losing, but he says “it was worth it to discover his tell”. 4 hours playing, they take a 1hour break. Bond puts a ‘bug’ in Le Chiffre’s inhaler. Le Chiffre is attacked by two terrorists from Uganda, who threaten to cut his girl’s arm : “not a word of protest, you should find a new boyfriend”. She will not.
Bond and Vesper try to hide when the men go out giving Le Chiffre another day to give the money back, but when the men see Bond’s earpiece the fight starts. It’s long and brutal, Bond kills them and tells Vesper to call Mathis to ‘clean up’.
Bond also has to clean up, himself, and changehis shirt to keep playing. When he goes back to his room, he finds Vesper in the shower, still with the dress on, sitting down and hugging her knees, still in shock, very shaken for the deaths she witnessed. Of course. He sits with her under the water, only loosening his tie (a real papillon, not a clip-on, of course). He hugs her a bit, trying to comfort her.
One of Le Chiffre’s men is arrested because Mathis put the bodies in his car. Bond and Le Chiffre bet everything, and Le Chiffre wins, he played on his ‘tell’ on purpose to make Bond believe he was bluffing.
Vesper refuses Bond the money to rebuy his way in, so Bond takes a knife and goes after Le Chiffre. A player stops him, he’s Felix Leiter, cia, and offers to give Bond his place because Bond is a better player. Vesper does not look happy.
And they’re all so focused on other things that nobody watches what it is that they’re drinking. Le Chiffre’s blonde girl put poison in Bond’s cocktail, and as soon as he notices he goes to the bathroom to throw up, but it’s not enough. He rushes to the car and links his microchip, the one in his arm, so MI6 knows about his problem. They monitor his values, tell him to get a shot against the poison and then to use the defibrillator to help his heart but it doesn’t work because one of its things was not attached, and it’s too late, he’s out… but Vesper arrives and sees what’s going on and saves his life. He opens his eyes and asks her how she is…
He does not go to the hospital because he has a game to finish. Le Chiffre had a very good hand, but Bond’s got the highest and wins.
Bond dines with Vesper then she goes out and he follows her, to see her abducted. Bond takes the car and chases at high speed, so when he finds her tied up on the road he has to avoid her and his car turns and turns many times.
Le Chiffre takes both to an abandoned place - a ship? A container? Something.
He tortures Bond, hurts him a lot poor guy, but Bond won’t give up, not to save himself or to save Vesper. Le Chiffre wants the money, needs it, and Bond tries to play on that, saying that if he dies he’ll never get the money. It’s really a nasty situation, but then Mr White comes in and shoots LeChiffre in the head. Dead dead.
Bond wakes up at a clinic, he has the agency take Mathis away, he thinks Mathis betrayed him, telling Le Chiffre about ‘his tell’, about their conversation.
Vesper is all sweet now, and when they transfer the money she is very surprised to learn that he chose her name as the password.
She says he’s a real man and their story starts getting real.
When they can leave, they leave together. He says he’ll change life for her and resigns.
In Venice, he sends his letter of resignation. They are happy and in love.
When Vesper goes out, she leaves her phone in their room on purpose. When M calls him that the money hasn’t arrived, he sees in her phone that she went to meet someone. With the money in a case, she took it from a bank - are you telling me that in a bank in Venice they put millions in cash in a case, just like that? A normal person can’t even get a few thousands and she can get millions and millions just like that???
Bond runs after her and interferes with the exchange. Shots are exchanged instead, a building is demolished under water, some men are killed, she is locked in an old elevator. Mr White goes away with the money, Bond tries to save Vesper but he can’t, she dies.
M tells him they found out Vesper was being blackmailed, Mr White’s organization said they’d kill her boyfriend unless she made Bond lose the game, which might be why she refused him the money to reenter the game. But M also says that if they got out alive while Le Chiffre was killed is because Vesper made a deal, the money in exchange for his life. Well, their lives, but she left her phone behind for him, and also took the elevator’s key, she knew she’d die.
Bond wants to be cold, to feel nothing, tells M it’s over, the beach is dead, you know what I mean.
He looks at her phone and there’s a mesage for him, Mr White’s number, so Bond can go there and get the money back. Probably kill him too, but we don’t see that.
James Bond is Daniel Craig
Vesper Lynd is Eva Green
Le Chiffre is Mads Mikkelsen
M is Judy Dench
Felix Leiter is Jeffrey Wright
Mathis is Giancarlo Giannini
Solangeis Caterina Murino
Carlos is Claudio Santamaria
Mr White is Jesper Christensen