ARCHIVES for The Media Magnate:  2009, 2010.
 
2009 Film Review - Quantum of Solace
 
April 17, 2009
By Eric M. Scharf
 
It is a rare person who does not have some level of appreciation for 007. I am not part of that minority, and I have enjoyed every 007 film in existence.

Loyal fans like myself, however, have still had to rise to the challenge of accepting, once more, a new actor in the lead role of 007 films.

The series began with the brilliance of Sean Connery, followed by an unappreciated radar blip of a performance by George Lazenby. Roger Moore quite literally came to the rescue with a less serious but still successful run of 7 films after it was determined that Lazenby was not going to be the long-term solution to Connery’s departure. After it was learned that Pierce Brosnan was not going to be let out of a 5th season of Remington Steele, a much harder edge and no-nonsense approach was introduced to audiences with Timothy Dalton. A more intense flavor of Dalton’s style would be seen, again, years later.

After 6 years involving various legal delays between EON and MGM, as well as reluctance by the film studios to give up on deficient scripts and concerns over the role becoming too serious, Dalton understandably could not wait around forever to renew his license to kill. He moved on, and whether or not it was his choice is another story. Then, finally, what everyone had seemingly been clambering for had occurred: Pierce Brosnan was brought on board to play “Bond, James Bond.” Brosnan brought with him a hybrid of the charm and deadly capability displayed by former leads Connery and Moore, while retaining some of Dalton’s edge as well.

007 appeared to be on the way back to top-billing with filmgoers everywhere when the film studios evidently determined that Bond, once more, had to get younger and more physically capable. There was some waffling by the studios once public reaction began to turn ugly. They went back to the bargaining table with Brosnan, who stated that he still preferred to continue with 007 even after being unceremoniously kicked to the curb, but an amicable solution could not be arranged.
 
Brosnan put down his famous martini for the last time and walked away from the franchise, never to return . . . at a time when the studios had low confidence that a quality successor to Brosnan would be found. There was nothing wrong with Brosnan, who probably had at least 3 to 4 more 007 films in him. The studios may have had the best of long-term intentions, but they unnecessarily created a problem for themselves.

This scenario brings us to the present, where we find ourselves watching the hardest edge ever to play James Bond, 007: Daniel Craig.

Mr. Craig first assumed the mantle of the coolest, most mysterious, most seductive secret agent in the history of MI6 with the remake of “Casino Royal.” His brand of Bond, although driven by the script, is one devoid of the incredible gadgets to which 007 fans have learned to crave with the announcement of each and every new film.

The gadgets, thus-far, all seem to be based upon real world products for branding tie-ins. Cell phones are a good example used throughout Craig’s first two films as Bond. Hollywood film-making, after all, has become as much about marketing a film as it is about making a film, let alone a good one.

Craig’s Bond is hardened from his experiences without the convenient creature comforts typically provided by Q. This new Bond has proven he can exist and succeed with no more than his incredibly sharp mind, deadly combat skills, and pinpoint accuracy against anyone unfortunate enough to become his target or an obstacle in his path.
 
He will accomplish his mission without even the shirt on his back (as in “Casino Royale”), being, by far, the most physically fit 007 since Sean Connery in his earliest Bond film. Craig has converted 007 into the kind of secret agent who can, indeed, terminate an international criminal with a single strand of their own hair. If you go by some of Ian Fleming’s earliest Bond stories, and if the studios’ aim is to adhere more closely to those stories, Craig appears to be on the right track.

“Casino Royale” can be summed up by my singularly-held theory (held only by me, of course) that it was the first film in a series of etiquette “courses” (films) for a nearly unstoppable force, in Craig’s 007, who cares not for “playing the game” with his enemies, and who would gladly dismiss the pleasantries and subtleties with which the fans are so familiar . . . for a direct hit. He despises foreplay, and he has the patience of Dirty Harry, who happens to be one of my all-time favorite film characters.

This new 007 does, indeed, know how to navigate a China shop like a silk scarf floating effortlessly on a gust of wind, but, like Dirty Harry, he simply prefers doing it like a Brahma bull, as the enemy deserves no better.

The following “Casino Royale” exchange between 007 and M, played once more by the wonderful Judi Dench, supports the irritating transformation 007 must endure in order to show M that her faith in him has not been misplaced.

James Bond: “So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman.”
M: “Any thug can kill. I need you to take your ego out of the equation.”

They realize they need each other, but neither will admit it, and neither will give a centimeter unless ordered to do so. The tension, which lasts the entire film, is so thick you need a chainsaw to cut it.

 
Craig brings more of the same and a bit more involuntary refinement, per my theory, in “Quantum of Solace” (QOS), beginning on the final breath of “Casino Royal,” with some of the same supporting actors, and double the physical action.

 
Mr. White, the man responsible for the demise of both Vesper Lynd and Le Chiffre, has unofficially been brought to justice, as MI6 prepares to interrogate him in a dungeon-like setting for information on the bigger picture of his crime network. While a bit of a stretch, this seems to me like a subtle introduction to the equivalent of SPECTER or what might become known as SPECTER in future Craig-driven Bond films.

Mr. White is cool as a cucumber, pointing out to everyone in the make-shift interrogation room that his organization’s tentacles run very deep in so many places, like MI6. M seems to quiver ever so slightly before firmly pointing out to Mr. White that he will, indeed, talk.

Before we get the opportunity to hear and savor any intelligence data, M’s right hand man and personal body guard turns on his boss and attempts to free Mr. White, who is accidently shot in the leg. The body guard-turned-traitor dashes up the stairs with Bond hot on his heals. Bond gets his man, only to return to M having to explain that yet another potential source of information is, once again, dead at his hands. This is made even worse by a now-missing Mr. White, whose proof of existence is marked only by the blood stain where he was previously seated.

M’s trust issues with the agent she once referred to as a “blunt object” continue to grow. Losing one of her most reliable and trusted team members, along with Mr. White, shakes her confidence and leaves her grasping for answers, before we have even been introduced to Bond’s latest enemy. After all, M has a boss, too, and those answers become even harder to produce when your own department has been infiltrated by who knows how many agents of evil.

 
Dominic Greene, played by Mathieu Amalric, is a world renowned technology giant and environmentalist-turned-bad-guy who strangely reminds me of actor-comedian Chris Kattan. There were moments in QOS when I half-expected the scene to get dark, a disco ball to drop down, “What is Love” begin to play in the background, and see Amalric begin that same violent, back-and-forth head shake made famous by the Butabi brothers in “A Night at the Roxbury.”

Nonetheless, the amazing, beautiful, and sinister-looking locations, with which we are all familiar from previous Bond films, simply melt away in QOS. There are simply locations, bad guys, Bond, Bond’s constituents, and the common objects of desire that keep them all glued together for the length of the film.
 
A quick fling with Strawberry Fields, a new, naïve agent eager to prove herself, hits a dead end, but there is no love interest for Bond this time around. There is only an extremely attractive Bolivian spy, Camille, with an eye for revenge against Bolivian General Medrano who murdered her entire family right in front of her when she was young.

 
Though Bond continues to give M and everyone else a purposely quizzical look whenever he is accused of being out for revenge, it is that very thread being shared between Bond and Camille. Revenge would have, in fact, come very early for Camille, if Bond had not literally and unknowingly prevented her from ending Medrano’s life, thus, preventing the removal of Greene’s key playing partner in the military coup they were planning for the Bolivian government.
 
I was disappointed to see her character degenerate, however, from such an aggressive beginning to such a weak finale, as she struggles mightily to complete her personal mission objective and termination of her target, under less than imposing circumstances.  Bond is forced to assist in a situation where even he appears to overestimate Camille's capabilities.
 
Most 007 fans have been trained, with past films, to expect Bond to calmly come to the rescue of the damsel in distress, no matter how well-trained she may be, but there is no such act in QOS.  Bond actually appears surprised that she is having any real difficulty, and while it is refreshing to see Bond capable of such an alternative viewpoint of a woman in the same line of work, the writer and director would have done better to allow Camille to keep her dignity and finish what she started.

 
Speaking of being targeted for termination, QOS is the first Bond film in some time, however, that does not include anyone specifically camping out to remove Bond from the land of the living. QOS, alternatively, provides plenty of aggressive decisions by Bond, from beginning to end, as if like a mind reader, getting incredibly close to solving Greene’s criminal puzzle many times during the film.

It should come as no surprise that Bond spends at least half of the film having to dodge murderous accusations and live munitions being fired at him by his own countrymen, because, as with “Casino Royale,” he continues to have a bad case of being in the right place at the wrong time. This can, in all fairness, be attributed to MI6 being led to the scene of a hotel room crime just as Bond arrives. If anything, he seems snake bitten in his desire to get M off his back, by performing up to her unreasonable standards.

Bond does his job, but he continues to do it too well. And for as many times as his extreme efforts reward him with another cross-eyed look by M, even though his intended targets deserve their fate, it is understandable why he would revert back to playing by the rules, as long as they are his rules.

His bad timing enforces his own rules once again, and, with MI6 cutting off all of his monetary and travel resources, he must seek help from a familiar-if-understandably-unfriendly face, in Rene Mathis. We quickly learn that Bond was wrong in accusing Mathis of being a double agent in the last film. Mathis strangely seems to understand and even forgive Bond, even though it was clear that Mathis was treated like an enemy combatant once the accusation was made.

 
Mathis, ever the reliable connections guy, makes sure Bond is back on his feet in no time, even accompanying him back into the lair of the beast to help him succeed in his mission. Mathis introduces Bond to the local chief of police, who, essentially, professes his loyalty and resources to Bond. Mathis does not last much longer, and it is my interpretation (because it was not shown) that he is shot and stuffed into the back of a vehicle by that very same officer.
 
And, with bad timing as his best friend, Bond and Camille are caught attempting to leave in the very same vehicle, only to discover Mathis’s withering body. And, still, with what little strength he has left, Mathis manages to help save Bond, again, before another gun shot wound ends his life. It is a tragic end to one of Bond’s few reliable sources.

 
Mathis was not the only familiar face with whom Bond would cross paths, as his fast friend and U.S. counterpart, Felix Leiter (played by Jeffrey Wright), also does his part to spare Bond (and Bond’s would-be captors) unnecessary trouble. Leiter’s presence in that part of the world is explained as a component of the U.S. path of least resistance policy.
 
Wright does an excellent job, in his limited role, and I would be pleased to see him in future 007 films, continuing to offer his calming, mature influence, as he did in “Casino Royale” (when Bond wanted to break ranks and go after Le Chiffre directly, rather than return to the poker table to continue “playing the game”).

Even with the “plot within a plot” turmoil that ensues and continues to build for Bond as the film progresses, he starts to display more of the focus M has been seeking, while he succeeds in conquering two of his bigger demons and a piece of another by film’s end. He receives a quantum of solace and little more in avenging the death of his one-time love, Vesper Lynd, though, as a man of his word, she was out of sight and out of mind during this latest mission.
 
He helps his revenge-mate, Camille, escape unharmed from Greene’s self-destructing fuel cell-powered lair. He also manages to kill neither Greene nor Vesper’s ex-boyfriend, his brief follow-on mission. Greene succumbed to the desert heat, encouraged to drink anything that would quench his deadly thirst.

007 taking these two men alive, per say, rather than using his license to kill should vault him out of M’s dog house, but we know it will not be that easy. M is an impatient mother who expects her mutt to behave like a pure breed. 007 is, after all, an orphan. M, however, is in the unenviable position of requiring no patience, just results . . . from a person she cannot control like her other agents.

M wants 007 to function like a member of a team, and, yet, every time his precision misses her mark, she wraps him across the knuckles like Mother Theresa, thus, making him feel far more like a rogue or unappreciated mercenary than part of MI6. She decided to upgrade Bond’s status to 00, before “Casino Royale,” and she will have to endure his professional refinement, step by painful step, until she is satisfied or she relents on her requirements, allowing Bond to be part GQ and part Dirty Harry.

I have a feeling, per my singularly-held theory, that the next Bond film will have a scene showing M explaining to 007 that, if she is to really begin trusting him, and if she truly wants to see him become the entire package MI6 agent she requires, then, she must also give him the complete arsenal of tools with which to work. M officially introduces 007 to Q . . . and off we go to the next etiquette course.

While I believe I am alone in my singularly-held theory, which I want very badly to come true, I also believe that EON is well aware of the huge number of Bond fans who are perplexed by the continued absence of the traditionally suave and physically-capable Bond, as well as Q’s incredible library of fantastic toys.

EON can count me as, quite possibly, the one person who has no problem with 007 being rebuilt as an unstoppable modern day MI6 mercenary, who is carefully transformed, over the course of 3 or 4 films, into a willing gentleman who can kill with but a look, with amazing devices at his disposal, but never with the desperate need to use them.

EON – hear me now. Do not let my big picture theory disintegrate and, please, stop conjuring up cute film names that serve no purpose.