Casino Royale - Review

Director: Martin Campbell
Writers: Purvis/Wade/Haggis
Starrng: Daniel Craig/Judi Dench
Runtime: 144 minutes

George Lazenby: "I'd loved to have had that time over again and done another one or two (Bond films), it would have worked out great for me."

Lazenby would know. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was a good flick, and Lazenby did a fine job in the lead role. So what did he do with it? He squandered it away and watched his career take a tumble into mediocrity, if not outright obscurity.

There have now been 21 Bond films, with another currently in production. It is without doubt the most successful franchise in film history, and it has catapulted stars to fame and fortune, some of it deserved, some of it not. It made Sean Connery the film star he is, even though he once said he hated the character. The end of Roger Moore’s career, and the bulk of his retirement fund, was built not on the 401K, but the 007.

Timothy Dalton? Please. Without James Bond as his alter-ego in the ‘80s, no one would even know who Timothy Dalton is. Or rather, was.

Pierce Brosnan didn’t seem to need 007, but let’s be frank: before James Bond, he was more or less the guy from Scarecrow and Mrs. King. After James Bond, he is the man who has made a couple of extremely questionable film choices. After the Sunset was a bust, and The Matador, though an interesting character study, didn’t bring in the crowds. In that movie, Brosnan played a lunatic assassin who looked ridiculous in a Speedo. One has to wonder what Brosnan was thinking when his agent pitched him the script: “I just quit being the most popular action hero there ever was. So you want me to sprout a funny moustache, grow a beer gut, and wear skimpy underwear? Where do I sign up?”

All big film stars should have the following note written on their groupies’ foreheads: “Playing against type is how new guys get noticed. Playing against type is also how film stars destroy their careers.”

The fact that James Bond has been played by so many actors without missing a beat is all the evidence you need that the actor playing him doesn’t matter much.

That is why I took no notice of the anti-Craig hype when Daniel Craig decided to come on board as the next incarnation of 007. When I heard his name, I scratched my head, then snapped my fingers and said, “Oh, yeah, that English guy. From…”

“Layer Cake,” my friend said.

Sounds good to me, I thought. In Layer Cake, Daniel Craig was a good looking English guy with a gun. When you get down to it, that’s about all you need to play Bond. Even if an American were cast as Bond, traditionalists would protest vehemently, but they would go and see the movie. Some would like it, some would not, it would turn a profit, and we would await the next one.

Bond movies are Bond vehicles, not star vehicles. The actor is incidental, because you are not going to the movie to see him, you are going to see what he does: say a funny line or two, escape death, screw some women, and save the world.

I finally caught up with Casino Royale and it surprised me. Not because it cut back on the gadgetry, and not because Daniel Craig is a superb actor that brought anything new to the role. What surprised me about Casino Royale is that it had balls.

From the beginning of the film, the writers (Purvis/Wade/Haggis; God knows who wrote or re-wrote what scenes, but such is Hollywood) let you know that this time it is going to be a little bit different. A black and white scene opens the film, a subtle gesture to tell us that this is the first Bond, not the next Bond, just as Casino Royale was the first of the Bond novels.

Inside of three minutes, Craig’s Bond has killed two men. These are apparently Bond’s first ‘hits,’ and he shows no squeamishness about performing them. This is refreshing, in the sense that a hitman wouldn’t be hired as a hitman if he was afraid of killing people. M, played by an underused but always good Judi Dench, reminds us a little further into the film that the double-oh prefix in Bond’s title means he has a license to kill. This is also refreshing, since in past Bond films, the words kill and death were lacking from the script, no matter how many bodies flew through the air.

Bond had become a video game. This time around, the writer and director have the guts to give Bond his balls back and make him what Fleming always said he was: a hitman in a tuxedo.

He still gets the ladies, of course. One fantastic line in the film comes when Bond is talking to a beautiful assistant in the back of a car. He tells her she’s not his type.

“Smart?” she says.

“Single,” he replies.

And that’s about all the dialogue you’re going to get out of Daniel Craig. The writer has parsed his words down to next to nothing, and the film is better for it. Not because Craig can’t deliver dialogue, but because, what’s the point?

I was surprised by the balls of the writers, as well as those on director Martin Campbell. He keeps the focus on the violence of Bond, the subtleties of the character. This is courageous, considering what has come before. Laser beams, rockets, explosions, they are done away with. Bullets are about as sophisticated as it gets, and when Bond is tortured, it’s done the old fashioned way: he’s tied to a chair and receives a vicious beating. In the balls.

Though taken from the first Bond novel, the film is updated. Cell phones and laptops are put to use, and the baccarat game is replaced by Texas Hold ‘Em poker. This is a smart move by the filmmakers. American audiences would have been lost by baccarat, and the popularity of Texas Hold ‘Em on ESPN makes it the obvious choice.

The guts of the director come out again in the poker scenes. They take a good twenty minutes of screentime to develop, and it would have been very easy for him to skim it. He doesn’t. The game is played as if the audience knows what is happening. You can almost hear the director saying, “Don’t know the game? Lean over and ask your neighbour, because I’m taking this to to the limit. The movie’s called Casino Royale for God’s sake.”

The film is long, but not drawn out. I enjoyed watching the director take Bond through some water that hasn’t been charted in years. Bond, physically disabled. Bond, in love. Bond, truly enraged. Bond, out for vengeance and enjoying that vengeance. Bond, touchingly emotional. Yes, for the first time in ages, Bond actually strikes an emotional chord. It borders on melodrama, and isn’t as poignant as when Bond’s wife died (it has been a long time since you saw George Lazenby, hasn’t it?), but it is a quality scene.

But how was Daniel Craig, you might ask?

He was fine. As with all the other Bonds, he did a good job with the material and he didn’t try to play Hamlet. Like a smart actor with a smart director, he knew to keep his Laurence Olivier in check and let the character’s mystique cloud our vision of the actor beneath.

For his sake, I'm glad he's following what would be Lazenby’s advice: “Do two.”