Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006)
The crucial line in the opening credits: “Based on the novel by Ian Fleming.”
Ian Fleming’s credit on the film Bond series has for years been simply “Ian Fleming’s James Bond in…” and then the title of the movie. There hasn’t been a Bond film that stayed anything close to one of his novels since 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: in the seventies, the producers generally threw out Fleming’s plots, while by the 1980s the Bond films were taking the titles and a few incidents from his short stories but little more. All this time Casino Royale, the first Bond novel, remained unfilmed. The film rights were owned by different people to the rest of the series: they provided legal cover for a Bond spoof under the title in 1967, but yielded little else. In retrospect, given the level of farce the Bond series was reduced to through this period, the legal circumstances preventing an adaptation virtually amounted to protective custody. Now, though, corporate mergers and legal horse-trading has allowed its use as part of the “official” Bond series. And after the series hit a recent low with Die Another Day, the timing could not be better for a reintroduction of Fleming’s spirit to the series.
The producer’s obvious desire to get back to basics with Casino Royale is underlined by the decision to “reboot” the series so that this is Bond’s first assignment as 007. This isn’t an inevitable consequence of using the novel – Bond was already an experienced agent in the book – but it does give the new Bond, Daniel Craig, a stronger chance to reshape the screen character in his image. More importantly, it strengthens the hope that Casino Royale represents a statement of intent for the future of the series. This is a more character-driven Bond film than we’ve seen in a long time, and its tone is much closer to Fleming’s original. That’s why people are getting excited about this new Bond film. As a film in its own right, Casino Royale is good but not great. But there’s the spirit of Fleming in this one, and even more strongly, the sense that for once the producers are serious about going back to the roots of the series and making Bond films that are actually worth seeing. Despite years – decades – of Bond films that were only occasionally worthwhile, there remains an enormous goodwill for this character. Casino Royale taps into that, and for the first time in years, leaves you really wanting to see the next film in the series.
Fleming’s original novel is probably his best, and it’s certainly the most character focussed in the Bond series. Along with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, it is one of the key Bond novels in defining the critical women in Bond’s life: in this case, Vesper Lynd, a fellow agent whom he meets while on an assignment. The novel focuses on that mission, which centres on a high stakes card game in which the Secret Service hope to bankrupt enemy agent Le Chiffre, and its emotional fallout as Bond falls in love with Vesper while recuperating from injuries he sustains. The film expands this plot by bracketing it with action-based material that more closely resembles the film series’ stock approach, but essentially Fleming’s novel forms the core of the second half of the film. The filmmakers deserve credit for doing this: the latter portion of the novel is essentially a relationship drama, and the addition of the obligatory action finale can’t really hide this disorienting change of pace. The focus here is on how this relationship shapes Bond’s character: those whose idea of Bond is the death rays from space of Diamonds are Forever or Die Another Day are going to be a little lost.
Before we get into Fleming, however, the film has new ground of its own to cover. It leaps out of the blocks: the pre-title sequence is shot in black and white, and explores how Bond comes to be a double-0. It’s an effective little sequence, deliberately echoing one of Sean Connery’s definitive Bond moments, the assassination of Professor Dent in Dr No. It’s also notable for the clever little joke it plays on the series’ conventions, neglecting to open with the usual “gunbarrel” shot, only to use it later in a welcomely unexpected way. Also notable is the opening title sequence, by Daniel Kleinman, which is just fantastic, the best thing in the film despite its weak song. Add to that an exhilarating early action sequence as Bond chases a bombmaker through a construction site in Madagascar, and Casino Royale is off to a great start.
Once it settles down into its exposition, though, the film’s engine splutters a little. The first hour is reasonably clever in how it fills out the plot of the book, but it unfortunately still feels like filler. And while Craig’s performance as Bond is fine, the script seems a little wayward in how it presents him. It’s one thing for this new Bond to be rough around the edges, but the screenwriters (series regulars Neil Purvis and Robert Wade, plus Crash writer/director Paul Haggis) allow this to get a little cartoonish. One action, in particular, is so contemptuous of M that it would undoubtedly have gotten him fired from the Service. This might seem a strange criticism, but it betrays a misunderstanding of what’s interesting about the Bond character. Bond shouldn’t be just another Dirty Harry-style rogue cop unappreciated by his pen-pushing boss. What distinguishes him in the books and early movies is the tension that exists between his independent nature and his sense of duty to his country in general and M in particular. Bond might struggle against the constraints of the system he’s in, but his open conflict with his superiors here throws that balance completely off whack. Having him respond to M as Bruce Willis might in a Die Hard film dumbs down the relationship between him and M, unforgivably undermines M’s character, and makes Bond look like just another dumb thug. It’s obviously intended to show Bond’s early immaturity, but it’s overdone and without a skerrick of subtlety. Hopefully we’ll see a better balanced relationship in the next film.
The film works much better when it’s in Fleming’s material. The casino sequences are tricked up only a little, with the substitution of poker for the novel’s baccarat trading class for clarity. The novel’s infamous interrogation scene is preserved, although Campbell deliberately underplays its impact on Bond, presumably (and justifiably) afraid that audiences would walk out on it if he really played up its brutal severity. And then the film stays with Fleming as the plot slows right down and Bond’s feelings for Vesper deepen. The film’s reconfiguration of the plot, and addition of an action climax, slightly change what Vesper means to Bond, but not unacceptably so. What’s important is not exactly why she matters, but simply that she matters at all. The films in recent years have made occasional half-hearted attempts to suggest a character really means something to Bond, but these have always been throwaways, with virtually no context in the film in which they sit. In Tomorrow Never Dies, for example, we were asked to believe Bond might be upset the death of his former flame Paris Carver – yet most of her scenes ended up on the cutting-room floor, and Bond is giggling in delight during the chase scene that follows her murder. Casino Royale, by contrast, makes the relationship the point of the film, and dares to derail its action-driven plot to focus on it.
It is only as the final pieces of the plot lock into place that we see Craig’s Bond finally start to come into focus, and it’s really the prospect of what is to come that is exciting about Casino Royale. This is beautifully underlined by the score. Throughout the film, David Arnold, the film’s composer, avoids the use of the Bond theme: just as former series composer John Barry used to use his piece “007” as an alternate Bond theme, so Arnold uses a theme based on the “You Know My Name” title song as the principal motif for Bond. It is not until the very end that we get a full expression of the classic Monty Norman / John Barry Bond theme, and it’s a really wonderful moment, embodying the real message of the film: Bond is back.