Casino Royale
Categories: [ TV/Cinema/James Bond ]
James Bond's first mission as a 00 agent. A mission in Uganda fails lamely when Bond wrecks havoc in an embassy while supposed to spy on a terrorist. Asked by MI6 to take some time off, he continues his investigation which leads him to the Bahamas, and from there to the Miami's Airport, where a new prototype plane, scheduled for test flight is the target of another hired terrorist. The attacks are ordered by Le Chiffre, the banker of the world's terrorist organizations, who invests his customer's money in hasardous financial gambles. Because of Bond's intervention, he just lost all the money of an Ugandan rebel chief. In order to regain money, Le Chiffre organizes a high stakes game of poker in a casino in Montenegro. MI6 sends Bond there, since he's the best card player of the service and Le Chiffre's loss would destroy his organization, accompanied with Vesper Lynd, from the Treasury, who is assigned to keep an eye on Bond's spendings. The game is interrupted by pauses, during which Bond is almost killed by the Ugandan rebel wanting his money back from Le Chiffre and poisoned by Le Chiffre who doesn't want Bond to win the game. Bond barely escapes the latter attent to his life, and finally wins (thanks to Felix Leiter, a CIA agent who extended Bond's credits after Lynd refused). Vesper Lynd gets then kidnapped by Le Chiffre and Bond rushes to save her, but he gets caught and tortured by Le Chiffre who wants the password that would give him access to Bond's bank account that was setup for the poker game. Bond's life is saved just in time by an unknown third party. He then leaves to Venice with Vesper (with whom he desperatly fell in love). She however betrays him, withdrawing all Bond's (and Her Majesty's) money and brings it to an unknown character. Bond follows her, but is attacked by the henchmen of the unknown one. He doesn't get the money back, and fails to save Vesper's life who commited suicide rather than facing Bond. He then learned that she was trying to save the life of her fiancee, who was kidnapped by terrorists (the same ones she made a deal with that saved Bond's life when tortured by Le Chiffre). Vesper however had left Bond a note before leaving to the bank, setting him on the trail of Mr. White, the one who took the money in Venice. Bond tracks White down, gets the money back and his takes hie revenge on him.
The script is quite similar to Ian Fleming's Casino Royale novel (although terrorists, poker and Montenegro replace respectively the russian spies, baccara and the french riviera, not mentioning the abusive usage made of mobile phones, the Internet and electronic gadgets). The movie is quite different from the others by its structure (the poker game is central to the story although there is no action, except during the breaks) and the fact that Bond fells in love. Also, it is definitely a prequel to the series, but at the same time, it is clearly set in time after the previous episodes…