Casino Royale

By: Abbie Bernstein
Review Date: Friday, November 17, 2006

To get the big question out of the way right here, yes, Daniel Craig is James Bond. The Bond franchise is lucky to have him. In turn, Craig is lucky that Casino Royale, the film in which he makes his vivid 007 debut, is also the installment in the series where the self-mockery is practically gone, along with all the high-tech improbable gadgets. What’s left is an opulent but still fairly tough thriller with some amazing action, terrific stunts and actual character development.

It’s unclear whether future Bond films with Craig will have as much of the latter, but in Casino Royale (adapted from the first of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels – it was originally made into a TV piece in 1954 and as a feature satire in 1967 starring Peter Sellers) the producers and writers Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis introduce us to Bond in a black-and-white prologue just as he’s earning his 00 status by killing two men. In short order, Bond nails a terrorist but blows a larger operation, angering his boss M (Judi Dench), who’s also none too pleased about some of Bond’s other improvisations. However, as Bond is the best poker player in the service, he’s selected to play in a $10 million buy-in game against Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), banker to the world’s terrorists. Bond’s mission is to win the game, thereby bankrupting Le Chiffre, which will (the theory goes) send him running into the arms of the British government for protection from his erstwhile clients. A British Treasury representative, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) is sent along to keep an eye on the investment. Naturally, there are a few deviations from plan.


Craig is probably the most ferocious Bond since Sean Connery (if not even fiercer) – it’s not so much that he lacks cool, but we can see far enough under the surface to detect an impulse toward violence. When he opens up to Vesper, he also displays a humanity and humor that we don’t often associate with the character, but that works – we really do feel that we’re seeing the evolution of the character, rather than (as with many films dubbed “the beginning”) a retread disguised as prologue.

There are some real visceral thrills and shocks here that are closer to what we expect from the kinds of action films often dubbed “gritty” rather than the fantasy/science-fiction elements that the latter Bond films have adapted. An opening hand-to-hand conflict in a restroom is pretty brutal and there’s an early chase sequence, with Bond in hot pursuit of a fleet-footed terrorist, that is breathtaking thanks to the athleticism and choreography of “free runner” Sebastien Foucan. There’s also a torture sequence unlike anything seen in a Bond film before that expresses in non-playful terms just how much the character is willing to give for Queen and country.

The character material is engaging, as is the slow flirtation between Bond and Vesper, played intelligently by Green, with Mikkelsen giving some depth and sweat to the bad guy, who this time out is not interested in world domination, only financial gain (and saving his own neck).

Director Martin Campbell creates a sense of excitement, though he allows the pace to lag at times, with the result that Casino Royale feels as though it has almost as many not-quite-endings as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (most Bond fans will quickly realize that what looks like the finale can’t possibly be the finale, and charming as the content is, we can’t help thinking that perhaps it should have come earlier in the proceedings). The score by David Arnold impressively and beautifully channels John Barry, with especially good use of the Bond theme.

Casino Royale doesn’t try to be all things to all people, but it works character study into something that is recognizably a 007 plot. It’s a good Bond movie, and a good movie, period.