Film Review--Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace
directed by Marc Forster
written by Neal Purvis, Paul Haggis and Robert Wade
starring Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright, David Harbour, Jesper Christensen, Anatole Taubman

Alas James Bond comes back to us tarred and broken, in a state of primal fury directed at whomever killed his girl Vesper (Eva Green). In this sequel to 2005's exceedingly successful “Casino Royale” we get a tormented character who has morphed into a relentlessly cold killing machine. This Bond is macho for its own sake. He possesses all of the terrible longing that has heretofore lain only on the surface. He is riddled with shame and anguish and wants desperately to smash some expensive thing to bits.

Bond kills blindly in this installment. He exists in his own head outside the realm of all control and seeks to carry out his own, undisclosed mission, on his own terms without having to first run into the steel-coated reservations of M (Dench). In this film still smarting over his girl’s demise he is informed about an Operation called Quantum that are so secretive that neither the British Secret Service or the CIA has any intelligence on them. One of their officers is a man named Dominic Greene (Amalric) who runs a front ecological organization called Greene Planet. He and his cronies are working with the Bolivian General Medrano (Joaquín Cosio) who they plan on propping up in government after a successful coup in exchange for a plot of desert land.

Bond is filthy throughout much of this film as his face and shirt are routinely speckled with dirt. He seems rawer and more unbalanced than before and this is really a continuation of “Casino Royale”. This Bond seems psychologically wounded as several shots show him grimacing as if banged up after a nasty fall. He’s still a totemic figure who looks smashing in a tux and can bed any woman he fancies but he comes off as perhaps somewhat tired of the same bloody games. It’s almost a meta rationale in this film. The Bond character has become bored with what Bond usually does in the course of his general routine. Have the writers written this into the script or has Daniel Craig added these little askew glances and eye rolls himself to express a type of ennui that the character is now experiencing. Regardless, he doesn’t look particularly delectable in many scenes and seems to be going for that been sleeping in trash cans and drinking my own piss look.

So, Bond meets a woman named Strawberry Fields (Arterton). Granted it isn’t a classic Bond double entendre in the league of, say, Plenty O’ Toole, but it still works for the character. I can see her emerging on a brisk March morning from a quick dip in an exceedingly cold river and running naked through a field with something or other growing that doesn’t necessarily have to be strawberries. Anyway, she’s delectable and one expects Bond to eat her up and naturally he does. It’s quick, meaningless and both of them just shrug their shoulders and move on. Then Fields disappears and we don’t hear from her until she shows up very dead and absolutely covered in black gold. It’s a tremendous ode to “Goldfinger” and it’s quite lovely to see a lass smothered as she is. So, we have another thing Bond touches turning to shit.

One of the reasons M wants Bond’s guns and official spy gear is because he can’t stop shooting people who are actually valuable to the investigation. There is a bit of cruelty to this Bond as he guns down his adversaries. In the Sean Connery Bond films he seems downright jaunty in his executions of justice and never seemed to take anything too seriously. Killing was a blast, a sport, and he shot people as if it were all a laugh. Then Roger Moore came in after George Lanzenby’s quick turn, and started his humorless, mechanical forays into doing his duty for the Queen. It’s only gotten more institutionalized and matter-of -fact since then. Now we have Daniel Craig with that terribly serious look in his eye as if all the joy has completely gone out of the exercise.

The great strong Bond woman in this film is played by Olga Kurylenko who is quickly making a name for herself as a mercurial, slightly reserved vixen who probably scares most men she meets. In this film her Character Camille starts off giving Bond a ride and she continues to do so for the rest of the film. Camille is exceedingly dangerous and Kurylenko makes her irresistibly so in the process of making us fall in love with her. She’s a top notch Bond girl and certainly one of the best utilized and smartest.

There are few, if any, gadgets in this film which is a trend that has continued through several reinventions of the Bond character over time. Occasionally, he is forced to interact with his world sans the toys that have traditionally given him a considerable edge over his less tech savvy foes. In this one we get a fabulous computerized touch system that allows the MI6 to keep abreast of any situation that interests them on a global scale. It certainly looks terrifying and glorious while making the Brits at least appear to know what they are doing. It cements the film in a grave reality which may or may not reflect present events.

This Bond seems less sexually motivated than earlier versions. He doesn’t have that impish charm which got Sean Connery’s Bond laid so many times. He also doesn’t practically rape women like Roger Moore’s version. He’s certainly a ladies man but he doesn’t reduce all women to a slavish, giggling schoolgirl with a terrible crush on the big, bad super Agent who knows what it feels like to kill a man. Women are just part of the job and he knows which ones are worth sleeping with and which ones he should cast from his mind. The earlier Bonds did not discriminate and wasted valuable time mounting their pretties from behind and discussing the merits of Yeats over Swinburne. This turn sees Strawberry Fields spilling info whilst on her back receiving her Majesty’s Secret Service.

The performances in this film sometimes exceed the expectations one attaches to films of this nature. Mostly this commendation applies to Mathieu Amalric whose languid interpretation of his character is both nuanced and terrifying. One just can’t ascertain what Dominic is planning and Amalric gives us no clues to help us decide in this sense. He is supposed to be a bad guy who wants to make life even more difficult for a great number of exceedingly poor people. We are supposed to root against him and pray that some untoward end befalls him. However, there is a spry aspect to his character that Amalric reveals with his eyes. The character actually possesses a tremendous amount of focused energy which makes him an able match in the tradition of Blofeld and Largo. He is fully capable of matching Bond at every turn and this film proves him to be a physically able adversary which seems to spring from a previously unknown source but instead it has been there all along and Amalric brilliantly gives us hints all along. Daniel Craig masters the low key version of Bond who is driven by something beyond the actualities of his job. Craig shows us a vulnerability and a slight helplessness in a few scenes that are mostly played out with his eyes. This is a film of eyes and secret codas being expressed by these fine actors. Jeffrey Wright is almost comatose as Felix Leiter, the CIA man who’s listening to all comers. He appears to be on some sort of cold medication and comes off as terribly depressed. It’s a strange and fantastic interpretation of the character and gives him a solidity and a peculiar vitality that he carries with him for the length of the film. It’s a seriousness that underlines the severity of the mission he is undertaking.

Overall, this film does a credible job with the Bond legend. It carries it fairly well and creates a fascinating story replete with characters that come of as real and necessary. The Bond character is a bit more damaged in this installment than in the past. We no longer have an infallible Bond who makes all the right moves without demonstrating a single iota of emotion. Connery was having a bit of a joke and Moore thoughtlessly went about his missions without concerning himself with trifles such as feelings. This Bond is tortured and it’s exciting to anticipate just how much more fucked up he can be in the next one. This is a Bond who is very close to disappearing to himself completely. He’s swayed a bit from his proper course and I’d like to see this aspect of his character further exploited. The days of Candy darlings and easy answers are over. This Bond, as an extension of Casino Royale, can shine a new light on many more discordant paths ahead. Bond should fall further into the quagmire of his mind. He should slip down into a realm populated with his own ghosts. We have a Dark Night. We need to further investigate the basic Satanic nature of James Bond.