Midweek Mention... Casino Royale

Casino Royale

Dan: I nominated a bond film against the wishes of just about everybody because you wanted to do a bond week at some point But we have been doing this podcast for a couple of years. We still haven't done a bond week so I wanted to watch

Pete: we haven't done a Bond film. Don't make me laugh. No.

Dan: Well, maybe this is it then,

Pete: Well, it is.

Dan: is 001.

Reegs: you you locked. I don't think I did it, but Goldfinger.

Dan: Right, okay, so it's 002 for Bond. But we're going Casino Royale this time. And there is two versions, isn't there, Peter?

Pete: there are two versions. And I thought, because nor the normal criteria of the midweek mention is usually like a pre, like, kids existing

Dan: When did this come out

Reegs: 2006.

Pete: out

Dan: The, the year Sonny was

Pete: year your son was born, yeah. But the but the older one definitely came out a lot.

a lot longer than

Dan: that. The David Nivan one?

Pete: Yeah, anyone seen

Dan: No.

Reegs: Yes, Peter Sellers. Like,

Dan: Yeah.

Pete: Like, really offensively rubbish. It's basically a glorified carry on film.

Dan: Yeah, that's what I'd heard.

Pete: all like, titillation and... It's fucking crap. And we think with the cast, like Peter Sellers, especially, I mean, he's not got a huge

Dan: Yeah, but associated with it

Pete: Niven and then there's a load of, there's a load of cameos and people you'd remember from, from yesteryear.

A lot of like stellar British actors from back in the

Cris: is that from

Pete: Seven sexy. There we go. That one that year, but no, avoid it like the plague. This is not that film though.

Reegs: No. This was the sort of reboot of the franchise and I think, you know, to put it in the context, people had started getting pissed off with the Brosnan ones for being the same formulaic, like stupid puns

Dan: well, e everybody had, every bond has their day, don't they?

Yeah. Even the best have come to an end. And Brosnan, he'd done some good movies, but he's probably, yeah. People were ready for someone else and they'd always been tall, dark, and handsome.

Reegs: Well, and also it, it had been made to look a little bit stupid by the Bourne movies. So like Bourne had come in and suddenly changed up what like a, a sort of secret agent was.

And Bond started to look a little bit ridiculous with his gadgets and his haircuts and his like misogyny and all that. So, the new bond had to be something a bit different. So to do that, they got all the guys who did the old one, pretty much Martin Campbell, who did, tomorrow Never Dies, maybe?

That's a Brosnan one, isn't it? And a couple of the screenwriters and stuff, but they did reinvent him, I think, in the vein inspired by Nolan's Batman that came out the year before. That's what it felt like to me when they did this reboot of

Dan: It was grittier.

Pete: you think it was kind of inspired by that? I mean, if there's only a year between the two, I, I, it's difficult to,

Reegs: well, but you knew what he was working on and the tone of it

Pete: I thought it was that because when, when was the first born film? Do we know?

Reegs: Oh, it's 2004

Pete: right? I th I I would've gone. But like you say, there, definitely I rem I remember the, the sort of feeling at the time, I wasn't a massive fan of the Brosnan films. I mean, so act sorry. Some, some of the, the, the stories were good, some of the characters were goods.

I think the first one, maybe two, it kind of like, you, you enjoyed brosnan's, kind of like charm and everything. And he, and he was. Another iteration of a similar Bond if you know what I mean that we'd had but by the end of it It was getting really like cringe worthy. I think I've only watched three of the Brosnan films like maybe once that's it

Reegs: Yeah

Pete: And it definitely needed a revamp, but I remember this being a big thing It was like the tension was palpable Like pre Casino Royale knowing that as you say sort of like Bond had taken a born Sorry had taken the spy genre into another sort of like, you know, direction completely and nailed it.

Almost to the point where people were like, born over bond kind of thing. And then this was their chance to kind of like hit

Reegs: And to do that they cast a 5'10 blonde guy, like much to the annoyance of like the internet just howling with rage about it not being a

Pete: But, like, but noticeably sort of, I mean, in all of the previous iterations, again, all of them have been handy because they've, you know, they've worn a tuxedo in every fight they've ever fought against any number of henchmen and still come out on top.

Reegs: Yeah, but do you remember the furore over Daniel Craig being blonde? Do you remember that?

Cris: that the thing.

I I obviously, I, I wasn't, I I think that was the second year I was, I was, was abroad, so I didn't really get that and I wasn't living in England at or in the UK at the

Reegs: living in the U. K.

Cris: Was it? Right. Okay. I

Reegs: And then he turned up to be announced. It was a bit unfortunate.

He was sped down the Thames, but he was wearing a life jacket and everybody was like, Oh, Bond doesn't wear a life jacket. Well, but yeah, it wasn't

Dan: Daniel

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah, so there was a lot of... I don't think it was a foregone conclusion that this guy who'd only starred really in Layer Cake, was the only movie that I knew him from was gonna be absolutely sensational as a reinvented Bond.

Pete: and, and not just the, the blonde hair. And the fact that he was, you know, he's not. I mean, it doesn't come across in this film necessarily that he isn't, you know, necessarily like the tallest or whatever, but more his like physique and, and, and the sort of like the action, you know, he's, he's a, he's a guy that looks ready for actually, he's a bit rougher, you know, I mean, he still scrubs up pretty damn well, but he, you know, he looks a little bit more rough and ready rough around the edges, that kind of thing.

So. Whereas before, your Bond had been very, had been very kind of like, elegant and, and so on. yEp, it was a removal and yeah, let's talk about it

Dan: Oh, this. It begins with your, your usual madness at the beginning of a Bond film. So, it was a huge chase through a, a construction site and everything.

Pete: I'm glad you pulled him up. Listen, we should always leave Riggs to do what happens at the beginning because he gets it right and you don't.

Dan: Oh, that's one way of

Reegs: Because I watch it and I write it down so it's like

Dan: okay.

Pete: Oh, interesting. Let me make a note of

Dan: So, alright, bring us back. Where was

Reegs: Well, we start in black and

Pete: do start in black and white. Yeah.

Reegs: And it's kind of supposed to be it's a guy going up to a top floor lift And he's getting out getting in his office and he doesn't realize that bond is already sat there And it's kind of the story of bonds first two kills

Pete: Yeah, he's lit. He's, they're, they're sort of setting the scene that he's, he's just been given his double O status and I think that this scene, well, it's not a lot, it is not really important for the plot of this film necessarily.

It's your, again, your first kind of like, window into this new Bond, and what the action is gonna be like, and what he's gonna be like, and it's like, it's fucking brutal this scene.

Reegs: Yeah. And the fact that he's a bit raw and new to all this, it's definitely a reboot. It's definitely an origin.

Dan: and there's another guy, 0 14, wasn't he? That was his double.

Reegs: Wasn't he? That was

Cris: I didn't even understand. Is that like 007 times 2?

Pete: Yeah. know. Yeah,

Reegs: I know. Yeah, I know, it's not great,

Cris: it's double.

Dan: it's only going to get worse

Pete: Like, it's his double. Like, you mean it's his like, double ganger. Yeah.

Dan: wow.

Reegs: I meant. Anyway.

Pete: Yeah, if you've got to explain them Dan, then they're not so good.

Reegs: he's there, Bond is there to offer a guy who's been selling secrets, Dryden, I think his name is, and he's saying, oh, they've sent, you know, I'm not that bothered, they've sent you, I know you don't have any kills.

And he says, well, actually... You're wrong about that and interspersed with this conversation we get and beaten the shit out of some guy. It's brutal a fight in a in a

Pete: bathroom. Yeah.

Reegs: and I think he ends up drowning the guy and he

Cris: really, like, petting a sink destroys a few sinks and all that, yeah, it's quite

Pete: Yeah. because again, if I keep harping back on about the old ones, but there's, there's lots of like grizzly deaths in the older ones, but you don't see it so much. And then you don't see the, like, you know, I don't know, Roger Moore or Sean Connery or whoever, like physically strangling someone to death or physically like holding them underwater until they, you know, it's all not Yeah.

It almost like cuts away or it's more of an extravagant kind of grisly kill or whatever, but

Reegs: Yeah, they're striving for some element of brutal realism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you know, the guy says something about, oh, I've, I've... Heard the second kill is and you know, he's about to say easier and he says, yes, considerably shoots the guy or whatever. It's a cool little, basically we see how cool he is and all that stuff.

And then as we get, we still carry on with the little flashback to him beating the first guy who rises up, doesn't he? And that's when bond spins and gets into pose. I don't know what the barrel gun barrel silhouette shot.

Pete: Yeah

Cris: the, classic bond silhouette shot. Yeah,

Reegs: And then opening titles and Chris Cornell the sadly passed away, or we could say dead.

Can't we? We're not too sensitive for that. dead. Yeah, he's dead. The singer is Soundgarden doing a pretty good one. You know my name. So

Dan: I

Pete: Name. It's a

Dan: one.

That was a great Bond track, yeah. And and then we get into this construction site thing.

Reegs: We do. And I actually really...

Cris: And the construction site. It starts when there's the fight between the mongoose and the

Pete: Oh, yeah.

Reegs: the mongoose and the snake.

Cris: There's like a Cobra.

Pete: Oh, the mighty cobra.

Reegs: yeah.

Pete: Do we know, anyone know where this is? Madagascar. Correct, yeah.

Cris: I have actually been there. Not while they were shooting this movie. But I was there, yeah.

Dan: Oh, nice.

Reegs: And he's there spying on a bomb maker called Malaka, who is Sébastien Foucault, who is this, one of the inventors of freerunning. He did and did loads of cool stuff, and he's this instantly recognizable sort of disfigured

Pete: yeah, he's burnt, isn't he?

Reegs: burnt bomb maker, as we'll come to learn. Bond is there with a

Dan: a rookie,

Reegs: A rookie alongside him who immediately fucks it up by exposing his weapon and being really dodgy and all that Yeah

Dan: And

Reegs: And it, kicks off this fight, this chase scene, that I really love, and it's emblematic of everything about the new Bond, that you know, you see his aggression, you see his physical threat, you see his ingenious, like using pulley systems to get himself up, you see his brave fighting on a crane, you see his cool, he catches the gun, do you know what I mean?

It's like, you see he's unstoppable, he's like literally running through walls, it's all the stuff,

Pete: stuff. Yeah, yeah,

Reegs: told through, You learn everything you need to know about the character.

Pete: Yeah. His stamina as well. 'cause it's just, you know, it's

Reegs: Yeah, he's relentless and also he's a bit vulnerable because he takes his licks too.

He hurts himself on the runs, the guy gets a few shots in and all that stuff.

Pete: Or he stubbed his toe on that building site or

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: it's the worst.

Reegs: And eventually it comes down to a big ruckus in an embassy, right? We'll just jump to that bit. Yeah,

Dan: yeah,

Cris: bit. Yeah, yeah, the Mauritius embassy in Madagascar.

Reegs: Was it the Mauritian? I didn't know.

Yeah, because they, he can't just walk in there and ask for them to sort of extradite the guy. So he kind of

Cris: Jumps over the fence and creates all this diversion and then they end up...

Reegs: Well, they end up in a courtyard, basically, with the guy with a gun at his head and surrounded by things and it's a bit of a brouhaha because they've caught it all on camera.

Cris: bit of a brouhaha because they've caught it all on camera. We first get introduced to Le Chiffre

Reegs: Yeah. It's before it,

Cris: is it before? Yeah, we're in Uganda and there's Mr. White introduces Le Chiffre to this warlord in Uganda. And

Reegs: playing pinball

Cris: yes. Yeah. And then he gives him a hundred million

Reegs: something like that. Something

Cris: like that.

And he's like, Oh, how do I, I think basically to wash his money, you know,

Reegs: He offers him a hundred percent return. Yeah, it's not really clear what Le Chiffre's doing in this. I think it could

Pete: Well, it said that the note I've got here is using knowledge of his own upcoming terrorist attack on an aerospace

Reegs: Yeah, he's gonna short He's gonna short the stocks when he fucks the

Pete: the big plane.

Reegs: Later, but it's still pretty sketchy thing. So he's gonna take a hundred million, he's gonna give him a, a reasonable rate of return is what he describes it back. And he gives him, but it is also laundering 'cause he can have access to your money

Cris: anywhere in the world. Yeah,

Reegs: He's a banker for

Pete: So coming back to that sort of like embassy scene where I don't think we actually qualified the bond just executes the the bondmaker. But again, this is more of this kind of like insert. I don't you know character development your new bond character development where he seems a lot. I mean Bond has always been sort of like emotionally detached like to a point where you know, Especially in the line of work that he's in but this is like, you know, that's a cold blooded execution like

Reegs: He's much more like an assassin in this, isn't he? Than a sort of super

Cris: Than a gentleman

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Like this, like he didn't I mean, very few gadgets in, in this, you know, I mean, the old bond probably would've like, you know, there'd have been some sort of like pen dart thing and then a quip or whatever, and then this, this was just like no bang shot in the

Reegs: in the face.

Yeah

Pete: no, no, no.

Reegs: So back in london, m is furious about all this being caught on video and she's probably at least as furious by the fact that He's actually broken into her house and used her security clearance to Learn a load of shit from the phone that he took from sebastian foucault and he's traced.

 Foucault's phone to the Bahamas, hasn't he? And not before they have a long pointed conversation where she talks about him being a blunt instrument. You know, reinforcing some of the themes of the movie, that he's not quite Bond yet. In some ways. Do you know what I mean? He sort of feels

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reegs: over the course of the

Pete: Quick, quick question, am I right in thinking, only because the Brosnan films were so forgettable, but was Judi Dench already M?

Reegs: I think she

Pete: Yeah, she was.

Reegs: She, he almost says her name and she like says, I'm going to have you

Pete: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, utter one more syllable, yeah. Cause it's, I didn't know M stood for, yeah. That is good. And this is, this is the sort of like the beginning of that relationship on screen relationship between those two. That's kind of like really, really interesting over the over the remaining films. But back onto this one.

Reegs: it becomes at the core of the, which one? The, the one up in Scotland Specter.

Pete: which No, the, the, the one before Spectre,

Dan: Die Another Day?

Cris: Quantum of Solace?

Pete: no, no, we're, we're doing all of them, the one where he goes up to his, Skyfall, there we go,

Dan: is Skyfall.

Pete: Anyway,

Cris: Anyway, we're not talking about that one.

Reegs: tells him to go on vacation or something, so he fucks off to the Bahamas to go and do

Cris: To the, to this country club, to the golf...

Reegs: You get some incredible product placement I mean throughout the

Cris: Yeah,

Reegs: particularly here, Sony Ericsson phone. Yeah, and, and Ford. He's driving a Ford quite noticeably.

And there will be a lot more two tennis bitches. Give him the eye as he gets out the car.

Pete: other car.

Reegs: And then some douchebag mistakes him for a valet.

Cris: The Germans, yeah, the German

Reegs: And a little bit of ingenuity. So he crashes their car. And so all the security go out and he can go in and

Dan: it's perfect example of just taking the, the situation, making the most of it.

Right, I've got some keys, distraction over there, boom, everybody goes out, and all the security guards are, are flooding out to check out the hoo ha in the car park, while he

Reegs: you plan your exits? If you're ever in an airport or yeah, you just naturally know where the exit that guy's left

Dan: How many plugs there are,

Cris: I just look for the toilets.

Pete: got, we've actually got a friend like that.

Reegs: like

Pete: Who like, who thinks like that when every room he goes into, the two things he's looking for are the people who might be difficult to have, difficult to handle in a fight, and the bird that might, might be up for it. They're the two things, which is kind of like a bond slash born sort of technique.

Reegs: Pretty weird way of looking at the world.

Pete: Yeah, he's a weird guy.

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: But oh, the reason for the distraction is so that he can then look at the security footage and pinpoint the, you know, the time of the, I think it's a phone call, or is

Cris: a message, ellipsis.

Pete: oh, it's from when the message was sent, this message ellipsis that was sent to the bomb maker's phone, so that he can pinpoint exactly who it was, and lo and behold, it gives you this guy, and his name is Demetrius, yeah who rocks up in a rather nice

Cris: Sixty four Aston Martin.

Reegs: brilliant Monnet and his wife is super smoking hot and she used, she loves to like, ride a horse on the beach really sexually as Daniel Craig come, came out the water and made me gay for a minute. Just as I was looking at him, just

Pete: which is actually kind of funny. Came out of the water and made him gay for a minute. I might go just, the film could be terrible, but I might go just to see that bit again, yeah.

Reegs: He's like a fucking panther when he comes out of the

Pete: the window. He's got, and he's, he's quite, he's quite sort of pouty as well, but I'll forgive him.

Reegs: Well, because he's got a bit of a sort of, like, he looks a bit like a boxer as well.

Like,

Dan: He's got a hard face.

Reegs: yeah, unusual. Anyway, hE has a poker game with Demetrius and humiliates him and takes his car and takes his woman. It's like pretty

Dan: that's right. Yeah. He does the, he does

Cris: it's quite a cool thing thing when he, the girl, the woman walks out and he kind of gets the car from the valet and she's like, oh, that's why he was so upset because you won the car.

Because he, she lost the, Mitchell lost the car. And then he's like, oh, where are you going? Oh, do you want to come to mine? And then he just does the loop around the thing and drops her off in front of the back where, yeah,

Reegs: I thought it seemed, made him seem like a huge douche. But that was the only, that was the only moment. Mostly he's fucking super cool throughout

Dan: they, they, they did, they did laugh and he soften the, the, the girl, because she went back to the hotel. Then she got word that. Dimitri was going to be away for the night, so she stays the night. And Bond's getting all kinds of secrets from her about his Dimitri's work and what he might be up to.

And, and as soon as he realizes he's at the airport and going, he thinks. This is the time for me to go round to his place and check it out.

Pete: He

Reegs: He

Dan: Well, he, he does, he does the order, doesn't he? He goes, he orders, like, champagne and caviar for, for two? No, just one.

And you realise he's off, yeah.

Reegs: he is. And he's off to this weird like museum body.

Cris: Worlds, yes. Pete used to sell them. Oh, I used to sell them for him.

Pete: yeah. we used to sell tickets to Body Worlds. It's quite a good, interesting place, that.

Dan: Is

Cris: I've never been, but it looked really good

Pete: been to artist, who, who basically just, you know, found this way of, it's effectively embalming, but then, like, stripping the, the bodies down. So, everything you see there is, like, real,

Reegs: like that

Pete: Yeah, it's kind of real.

They've got, like, incredible, like, horses sliced into, like, loads of different pieces and so on. They've got one thing, it's like, all the blood vessels of the body, it's just been, like, extracted perfectly and just, like, hanging as it would do in the body and so on. They get someone, they get someone faint every single day at that exhibition.

And more often than not, it's men. But, anyway, there's some Body Worlds facts. But yeah, that's what they are. But they, it was like a touring exhibition, so they would have

Cris: And it was at the Miami Dade.

Pete: Yeah.

Reegs: Dimitrios is there to meet his contact. Bond has tracked him down and they have a little weird stabby moment in the middle of the crowd, don't they?

Cris: well, Bond kind of ends up stabbing him and just

Dan: And

Reegs: Yeah,

Pete: So he's taken his car, his woman, and his life now.

Dan: yeah,

Reegs: Yeah, he's done for

Pete: The hat trick.

Cris: and now. he's just chasing the other guy. The new, the yeah.

Reegs: He goes up, so they end up following the guy that Dimitrios, I guess, was there to meet. And he goes to Miami International Airport where Richard Branson is going through

Pete: Oh yeah, yeah!

Dan: just saw a little glimpse of him. And, and this is it. Bond is, is climbing the ladder and finding the, the threads that are knitting this together. Cause he knows there's a deeper conspiracy. He doesn't know exactly what he knows. This word ellipsis is involved some way, somehow, and people's mobile phone and messages keep popping up with this.

So they're in cahoots, but. He's

Reegs: well, he phones, he phones em to start telling her what he knows and then cuts her off and puts the phone down as he realizes that he's got the security code that he can

Cris: Go through other in the back, back end of the

Dan: airport,

Reegs: And he's pieced together that there's this reveal of this brand

Cris: pieced new

Pete: Yeah.

Reegs: and the plan has been for the chief to, as we said earlier, he's going to short it. So they're going to try and blow it up. And he knows that Carlos is

Cris: Yeah. and blow it United. Is it United airlines or United air or something like that?

Reegs: And we get a pretty cool chase scene. It's a pretty long one as well, but I think it was all all good. Where the director actually, Martin Campbell, makes a brief appearance as the guy who gets his neck broken when the refueling

Pete: Ah, right,

Dan: Oh, really?

Reegs: stolen.

And we get Bond like, he goes off in the truck and Bo and Bond running up some stairs and jumping on top of the truck and we get another trope I really like, close combat fighting in a confined space, like the truck of a cab and all that sort of stuff. And eventually it... into

Pete: All that sort of the last minute sees these cars, these vehicles sort of in the way of the runway. So then like, it's actually happened to me in my flight home the other week where we like landed and took off again, but it took off and as it does, it just like, you know, like the. Like backdrop, whatever you'd call it from the, from the thrusters from the, from the jet engines, just like fires a police car up in the air, which I thought was quite cool.

But yeah, it culminates in the, in the cab fights. And then the guy thinking he's got the upper hand by jumping

Reegs: is being arrested.

Pete: Yeah, it is good because he's sneaky little bugger as he is he's he's He's got the detonator unhooked it from the bottom of the car and attached it to the guy's belt. Yeah

Reegs: And we get that little smile and, and it is a thing in this about just how psychopathic is Bond, cause he's,

Dan: you know, he's,

Reegs: enjoying some

Dan: wire, isn't he?

Yeah.

Pete: mean, all the while, you know, the, the guys back home in intelligence getting the hump because he's, he's not leaving many people to interrogate behind like everyone he comes into contact with is dead. But luckily he's pieced it together. It's probably not really that, 'cause I was thinking ellipsis.

Oh, that's the name of that. And it ends up just being the, the code to the, to get in the door so the guy can get his uniform to fit in at the,

Dan: airport.

That's right, yeah,

Pete: airport. But anyway, yeah. Then, then it starts getting into like the, I guess like the main piece of the movie, which is yeah, the poker game.

Reegs: Yeah. So the middle act really of the movie is this big poker game with huge high stakes. They set up. So Lif is gonna attend because he's lost all of his money or lost it. The guys, I think it's more to the point.

He's, he's, he's, yeah, he's lost the warlord's money. . That's really more

Dan: And yeah, and the warlords are starting to get a, a, a sniff of it, I think because he's, he's sweating it out now. He needs money. He, they know as well the British secret service that he needs money, they, they wanna put bond in and let him win because apparently he's the best poker player in the service.

Reegs: And that all gets relayed to him. There's a load of exposition on the beach when Dimitrios, his wife turns up dead and naked. And there's a loads of exposition where we basically get filled in on all of what's about to happen with the poker game and the money and Bond gets a tracking implant in his wrist.

So they'll know where he is. And pretty soon we end up on the train to Montenegro meeting Vesper Lind. West Berlin. Vesperlinde? West Berlin? That was the only,

Pete: oh, I, I hadn't considered that

Reegs: that. Maybe? Dunno.

Cris: Would that be the

Reegs: Why would that be? Dunno, just because they like, maybe just doing a very subtle thing that in the Bond

Cris: Ah, if you are on my opinion,

Reegs: silly names

Cris: the book, there Vesper Lind and he does call the Vesper Martini, the Vesper Martini, he makes it because of...

Vesper. So I think it's more the fact that the drink, he makes a drink and it, the book actually, that's how the book is. And the book was written a long

Reegs: I

Pete: And these are all characters that are in In the book?

Reegs: Yeah, no, I know.

You've probably read him. Have you?

Dan: Yeah, I've read some of them. About Fleming as well. You know, he's an interesting guy. The fact that he was in You know, the service as well. So he had some insight. Like John Le Carre, you know, another one. I think they were around the same time, to be

Cris: So that's my take on it. I think it's just that they tried to keep it as it was in the

Reegs: in the book. So anyway, we get to meet her. She's a good foil for him. She can sit, she's head of the treasury, basically. She's there to guard the money. And to make sure that the money that's used in the game is, is used appropriately. And she's like hell bent on not financing terrorists.

She understands the seriousness of the situation. She thinks Bond is cocky and arrogant and cool

Pete: Well, they have this kind of like intellectual sort of, you know,

Reegs: They analyze each other, don't

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Where, where he analyzes her first and then she comes back with bells on and, and as has got his number kind of thing.

Reegs: Yeah, what does she say?

It's like, how do you fit? It's skewered.

Pete: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then they go to, they arrive in Montenegro, like stunning place. I've been to Montenegro, incredible city, but they meet Renee. sOrry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I've been to Montenegro, it is a country, and I've been to, it is a stunning place. I apologize.

Reegs: There you go. It's fine. I think we knew what you meant

Pete: I have been.

Reegs: When they turn up they he's supposed to be a gambler called arlington beach and she's supposed to be stephanie broadchest was that He's making that up right in

Cris: yeah.

Reegs: Very

Pete: It's more of a nod to the old Bonds where they had like titillating names and stuff.

Reegs: Oh, it's a good bit of product placement for a watch brand. I really like

Cris: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What's that? What is that? Rolex? No. Omega.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. So, and then an Aston Martin and they actually show you the defibrillator and that, you know, could, could potentially, who knows, we get, might see

Cris: And then we see a few gadgets. That's the thing. That's, that's why.

Reegs: Yeah. So they meet with Mathis, I guess that's about right.

Yeah.

Pete: And again, he provides a bit more sort of exposition and everything to what's going on exactly.

I mean, it is an incredibly elaborate sort of plan in order to, but I guess it's going to get some people that are on their, like, most wanted list, all in the sort of, you know, same room,

Dan: the same room,

Pete: especially, and knowing who his connections are and who's... Who he's on the hook to and who's been funding him and all of

Dan: But there's two, we know at least two of them American and British secret service. And they're going at it. And it's, it's all coming down to, to this game. All the chips are in front of the, the players. You've got all

Reegs: Oh, it's a nice little moment before where he gets his iconic tuxedo. I think it's, we can say that's a big moment to see Bond in the tux, and it's given to him by her. She's tailored it for him, she sized him up by eye, and

Dan: That's right. Yeah.

Reegs: That's quite a cool little moment that his

Dan: his big, And he looks incredible in it. And he floats down and, And he's giving her instructions like You've to come over and kiss me at some point and to take the room away, you know Um, she's not really up to it all.

She just thinks this is an entire waste of money still She's even though he has won a bit She's not keen and she has also the power to put him back into the game with an extra five million that players at a point can buy in The choice is for her to make.

Reegs: It's a quite, it, it's really a good stretch of the movie. 40 or 50 minutes of the movie revolves around what happens around this card game that I don't think we need to be

Pete: we? Because at

Reegs: I guess the

Pete: one point he says

Cris: Well,

Reegs: we get two shots at the, the drink line almost, don't we?

Because at one point he says he comes to the table and he just orders some ridiculous sounding drink and like two other guys at the table like, oh yeah, I'll have one of those.

Cris: a large measure of Gordons, one measure of vodka, one can of Lillet, shaken or

Reegs: It was something I figured was also from the books, probably.

Cris: yeah, that is the Vespa

Reegs: Oh, well, there you go. Right. And then later we get the, we get the shaken or stirred and it's basically,

Pete: Yeah, do I look like I give a damn? Yes, you get that. You get the sort of like the, the fake tell where

Reegs: we get the arrogance, really a bond turned against him,

Pete: Well, exactly. So he believes that he, so he deliberately loses, well, not deliberately loses cause it's, it's on the, on the river that he that he loses, but It was worth losing that first hand in a substantial amount of money because he believes he's then got Le Chiffre's tell, so he thinks he's, he's got the upper

Reegs: And then later when Le Chiffre plays him for a fool Mathis almost shouts it across the room.

That's his tell! Like, at Vesper Linn.

Pete: it is quite comically cutting back to like, he is, he is almost Basil Exposition in this film, Mattis, back to like, oh, that's his tail. Like, like saying, and now there's this much on the table. And it's, oh, thank you. Thank you, Basil.

Reegs: Yeah, you do need to, I guess, have a little bit of understanding maybe

Pete: I guess, it, like, if, you know, I mean, I, I'm no expert at, at poker, but I kind of understand the basics.

But there a lot of people that would be watching this film may have never played poker. They'd have heard of it, but never played it. And so I guess it, it helps to know what's at, what's literally at stake and, and

Reegs: And the movie communicates pretty effectively that who's, you know, where the stakes are and who's won and lost.

So, anyway, Bond well, which bits do we want to do? Bond getting

Dan: I think well, that is the next, the next bit. So, Bond's on top.

Cris: the rest of it is,

Pete: s so, before that, so Bond loses all the money.

Reegs: Yeah. See, that's pretty big

Pete: so he's tripping. Yeah, but Bond loses all his money because he's been double

Reegs: witness to bond's brutality, and Is, is totally shocked.

Like, goes into a

Pete: like, goes into a massive shock. He's traumatized enough to do that thing that they do in movies where

Reegs: Well she's traumatized enough to do that thing that they do in movies where they get in the shower

Pete: their clothes on. That was

Reegs: on she

Dan: That was really odd. That was,

Reegs: him for a fingering later as well. When after he's had his balls slapped about, when

Dan: Ah, yeah,

Pete: about, if

Reegs: you've only got a finger left, it'll be alright.

Oh

Pete: you've only got a finger left it'll be alright. That's when we find out that Felix Leiter is, is one of the, the, the guys at the table. We find out that the CIA are involved as well and that's, so Vesper's refusing to, to give Bond any more money because she thinks he's reckless and arrogant and is meant lots of mentions of ego.

Felix says, look, I'm, he says, I'm bleeding chips here, but you know,

Dan: you're better than

Pete: you're better than me. So

Reegs: and we're American. We've got tons of money and

Pete: Exactly. Do we look like we need it? Is,

Dan: just, yeah, we just want to bring him in and yeah, he goes, okay, so he's back

Pete: Bond comes back with his, you know, sits down, he's, he's feeling pretty pleased with himself until he gets a, a poisoned Vesper Martini.

And yeah, that's where we see the, and that's So it's a

Dan: So it's a good scene. He manages to stagger his way to the Aston Martin where he's got a defib. And he's taking instructions over the phone to everybody who's in Q's office or wherever, M's office. And deciding, you know, he needs to do this. And one guy goes, no, he can't do that. He's got to do this.

Look, you've got to. Just as he's about to hit the defib, he realizes it doesn't work because there's a loose wire. And I mean, it's just shoddy workmanship. I can't understand how there can be a loose wire.

Pete: It did look like a pretty flimsy, like, defibrillator. I mean, I know it has to be

Dan: pissing around,

Pete: fit in the glove compartment of an Aston Martin,

Dan: around with one of those

Pete: you'd think it would be a bit of a stud.

It looked like a really old, like, Nintendo 64 or something like that.

Reegs: I liked it again though because it carries on the tradition of the Bond gadget thing but makes it sort of believable and realistic even though it's still a bit silly, you know, but in this world like it's,

Dan: Oh yeah, I mean, it can happen, I guess, it was just...

Reegs: so anyway, yeah, he goes Vesper comes in and saves the day, plugs him back in and because this is a new, you know, new man, when he wakes up, he's like, are you alright? He asks her, are you Straight away. Not like, I was just clinically dead for a few seconds there, that was pretty weird.

Pete: so he immediately goes back in and then wins the game

Reegs: the game?

Yeah.

Pete: takes everyone out in like a,

Dan: he's quite surprised to see him.

Pete: Sort of four way sort of, you know, ending to the game, but he It

Cris: Yeah. the flush,

Pete: yeah, the straight flush.

Yeah. So yeah, he wins the game. Obviously now the chief knows he's in, in in dead lumber. Although the, the, I don't think even he's aware that Bond has taken care of the the warlord guy. But then there's what's it Vesper gets a call to go and meet Mathis, and he's, he's suspicious of that, and as he sort of follows her, he sees her get bundled into a car, then you get the car chase, they're sort of, he's not too far behind, but far enough behind that by the time he comes around round one corner, Vesper's lying on the floor with her hands tied behind her back, and he has to incredibly, You you know, like, take evasive action.

Reegs: Featured heavily in the trailer that moment, didn't it? yeah,

Pete: Just turns so sharply, goes up on two wheels, just misses her head and the car tumbles many, many times. And then yeah, cue the scene where you get to see Dan in his birthday suit.

Reegs: birthday suit. Like a ship, like the inside of a ship

Cris: Yeah, a ship, like the inside of a ship somewhere,

Pete: Yeah, rope, Yeah.

Dan: They've, they've kind of

Reegs: It's not like sharks and laser beams

Pete: know exactly. I was

Reegs: twatting a guy in the bollocks, like, repeatedly.

Pete: did, he does, he did say lif even makes reference to it.

He's like, I don't like all these, like over elaborate you know, like torches and everything like that for first something a bit more simplistic. So yeah, he's getting whacked in the knackers and at first he's, he's you can see he's suffering, but he's not gonna give up. You know, he's

Dan: well he knows he needs him to give up.

Yeah. Yeah. Like if he doesn't. Chiffre is dead and he doesn't realise how quickly actually because this guy is about to come through the door

Reegs: Well, he's literally, he pushes bond to the floor and he's about to castrate him. He was gonna cut his dick off, wasn't he? That's 'cause he said something to,

Cris: he said something that I'll see how you are without your jewels or

Reegs: something, some, something that implies he's gonna cut his dick off. And then Mr.

Cris: Mr. White,

Pete: is.

Reegs: Chris Cooper is the actor. He is an actor I like as well. He comes in and just pretty much straight away, I think he says some, they have some

Cris: Yeah. He says, I'll have your money. I'll have your money tomorrow or something like that. And he just,

Dan: He goes, trust is more

Cris: yeah, we need to know our, our organization needs to know that people are reliable And then he gets shot in the head.

Reegs: really you had been led to believe by the marketing campaign that the sheaf was going to be this big, like villain type

Pete: Yeah, your typical sort of Bond villain with that, you know, he's got we haven't mentioned, but he's got a you know, he looks blind in one eye and he's got a tear duct that, you know, produces blood and stuff.

Reegs: and he uses an inhaler, which, you know, makes you evil. Yeah.

Pete: Yeah. So, but yeah, again, sort of like spinning the, the, the normal kind of like Bond rhythms of having a a baddie. reveal at the beginning all the way through to the end. There was no showdown with Le Chiffre in the end.

Reegs: Bond then I think recovers up in the hospital. This is when Mathis is, is tasered and taken away, cause he's, well, they know

Pete: Well, he's suspected to be that, well, Bond Striped Furnum believes that he's the guy that... Must've told Lif because, well, LIF actually intimate it. He says, I I'm, oh my, you think your friend Mathis? He's actually my friend Mathis. And so he he deduces, well he's basically, basically been told that that's, you know, he gave him the, the tell and, and where, you know, all this stuff.

So, but so Mathis gets carted off Vespa.

Reegs: This is when she asks him to finger her, basically. She says she basically says, I know you've had your bollocks smashed up, even if you haven't got much left there, I'll still do you. overwhelmed. That is basically what she says. It's kind of more romantic.

Pete: you've got a smile and a finger, I'll do you. Yeah, yeah.

But she's overwhelmed emotionally because when the Swiss banker guy comes in, that he, that he playfully asked him for chocolates. They, they, she puts in the account number and bonds. I'll say it's put in the password and it's her name. Isn't that cute?

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: is. Yeah.

Dan: and it's her name, isn't that cute?

Reegs: And so much so that he like resigns. It's as he's done with the life, he goes to be an honest man when he's like, oh, I'll get a regular job. We'll go and live the life. Like, you know, and

Dan: Over the moon with that. So they they head off and we start to see it.

Reegs: Yeah, this bit goes on.

It goes on for quite a long time. Really, it's important because it builds up the, you know, the emotional payoff at the end of the movie and the character development go on a long

Dan: is let down. He's he goes head over heels and he has been duped. She is not who she seems and she well she nicks a load of money, didn't she

Pete: Well,

Reegs: hasn't, it's, it's not quite as simple as that. She hasn't returned the money, which Bond finds out in a phone call. She

Pete: I was thinking the timing of that phone call was, was pretty good. Cause she, she, she says, Oh, I'm going to go and do this. You go, you go and do the shopping and

Cris: the

Pete: to go, I'm going to go and get my nails done.

And she buggers off. And M calls and it's like, he's like, Oh, did you get my email? Resign? And she's like, yeah, we'll talk about that later. Any chance of sending the money over? And then he immediately goes, Oh yeah, I was hoping you wouldn't notice.

Dan: notice. Even

Pete: Even then, he's still trying to protect her. And then she reads a message that she's got on her phone from somebody else.

Follows her. Turns out she's in cahoots with White and the, and the other guys.

Reegs: and some guy who's got one dark lens on his, on his glasses. I didn't catch his name, but,

Pete: I then, yeah, so it's, it's revealed that she's been the, the person that's been double

Dan: and, and as you said, she's, she's, we've had this long kind of winded romance play out and bonds confessing his love and how they're gonna go away and you've just never seen bond like this.

He's never gone.

Reegs: been well, he's willing to do it. He's willing to commit to an ordinary life with her.

He definitely is. isn't he? I mean, it's still an ordinary life going to Venice and, you know, fucking about there, but yeah.

Pete: Yeah but anyway, big elaborate finale. We're not absolute finale, but the last kind of like, you know, serious action in the film where He manages to kill all of the, the operatives and Vesper gets trapped in a, in a lift shaft in this building which is collapsing and, and sinking into the water in Venice.

She in fact just gives up the, the, you know, she just locks herself in it. And...

Reegs: why?

Pete: Well, I think that, right, so, so you find out obviously, like, that her actions were, yeah, okay, she, she's misled him and, and for, but she, it was for a reason, she's been sort of effectively blackmailed, and so she's, she realizes, she realizes that the game, well, she realizes the game is up, I think she's, she knows, I mean, she's got in cahoots with this, Organization that we later find out in films is like, you know, they've got people absolutely everywhere.

Even if she survives that, they're going to be after her for the rest

Reegs: mean, I know the, the point is, the, the big point is she dies so that Bond can learn the lesson that he doesn't trust anyone ever and he can be, you know, more.

Dan: more bond

Reegs: they can they can explore that in the other movies. I know that's what her function is as a character But her this was just weird. I thought this bit and I want I wish they'd rewritten it.

Dan: she, she

Reegs: you go

Dan: she had already been part of the British Secret Service though, hadn't she? She had been, you know, really, so, she's balls deep into one side, now she's given up, and she's cheated. She probably couldn't see her way

Pete: the game was up. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And she was underwater.

Cris: Pretty sure she, em says at the end that she was in love with a French Algerian man. And in, in order to save him. agreed to do this, and then in order to save Bond, she agreed to do this

Pete: Well, she, she, she, she, she bargained for Bond's life when he was being held

Cris: yeah.

Pete: And, and she obviously, she, yeah, bargained for

Cris: So, you'll get the money, and so on, so I think when you double cross him, and then you, he will eventually find out she's in love with someone else.

Reegs: Self drowning is a savage way to kill yourself, I think.

Anyway, it

Pete: To be quite euphoric. Drowning to death, but I've never done

Cris: Yeah, I wouldn't try it, but, I wouldn't recommend it.

Reegs: No. But

Cris: yeah, after the, after this, you can see Mr. White looking at Bond while he's, he opens the, the lift shaft in the end and pulls her out of the water. And you see Mr. White looking at him while he leaves with a suitcase of money.

Pete: Yeah. So then, well, Bond immediately withdraws his resignation and luckily that's accepted.

And yeah, you get, well, Vesper's last parting gift was a message to reveal who that guy was. It's Mr. White and this is his number.

Reegs: Yeah, mobile phone init,

Pete: so the final scene really is is Bond then sort of, you know, you see White get out of

Reegs: They're at Lake Como, it's lovely, beautiful there.

Cris: a great

Pete: Yeah.

Reegs: It's beautiful there, have

Pete: a lovely car.

Cris: I have

Reegs: it's... So beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, he shoots snipers here more. It's like a silenced automatic rifle.

I don't know what it is. He looks cool as fuck with this massive machine gun, this impeccable suit. And you know, I'm Bond, James Bond, smash cut.

Pete: yeah.

Reegs: Finally, the first time we get the, the full horns,

Pete: Absolutely. I think, I think so. Yeah. And, and I mean,

Reegs: perfect. Pretty

Pete: yeah, what, what it, what it does do.

And I think it's worth saying it really is as well as is that is the, the, the next film follows immediately after that. But yeah, anyway, that's that's Casino

Reegs: Royale. My favourite Bond film I think. Mostly because the fact is they try to give him something else in this. He looks a bit conflicted sometimes. He looks like he's got something else going on behind the eyes, which, you know, he's different at least for bond. He's not just a quippy something else. So that's a testament to Daniel Craig. I think he's just like a really exceptional bond and it's a really good story.

Pete: I, I think it's a testament to, to everything about the film. I, I wouldn't say it's my favorite Bond film, not because it's no good. I think it's a fucking outstanding film and, and I love what it, what it then sort of, you know, created or like created in the film and then, and carried it on. I've got others that, that, for nostalgic reasons that, that I think that I, I, I still

Dan: Niven. no.

Pete: definitely not that one. But I remember being not like, you know, beside myself with worry, but being worried about like, Oh, this, you know, bonds going in a new direction. And what's going to happen with it? They're going to try too hard. Just turn it into like any old action film that would have really like.

You know,

Reegs: Well, but it's still felt

Pete: could have been, it was the make or break of the, it could have been the death of the franchise, and I think it kicked it on, you know, again, I'd,

Reegs: the franchise needed rebooting more then, than it does

Pete: Oh, a hundred percent, I think it's in safe hands with, with whoever's got it now, because I think the people who, are behind it and yeah okay not all of the you know quantum of solace wasn't brilliant and you know

Reegs: it was terrible,

Pete: but but but bond himself he's a he's a character and as him as opposed to brosnan where it's just diminishing returns all the time and a couple a couple of the others you could argue as well Daniel Craig enjoyed his performance and the types of films that he was in as Bond all the way through his, his there.

I thought it was an absolute, like, smash. It's a brilliant film.

Reegs: as somebody who'd never really given a shit about Bond, suddenly I watched this one and I was like, I actually want to see the next movie and, you know, see what happens next in this story. pretty successful. Dan?

Dan: yeah I enjoyed it the first time round.

It's aged really well. I think even the, the fact that they use less gadgets

Reegs: see that's interesting as well because, because Bond is this portrayal of like masculinity and then because it's always over time, do you know what I mean? Like a portrayal of macu, like what is masculinity at a particular time, like the eighties or the nineties, whatever.

The fact that it hasn't aged all that badly and that, you know, a lot of it is about him dealing with being a psychopath, but also wanting to be a protector as well. It's still quite interesting. Yeah. Even like nearly 20 years

Pete: There's a lot of really cool stuff. I mean, the whole film really is about, it's about poker. And ironically, the best poker player in the whole film is Vesper. Who's the, the one who, you know, cause he even says to her like, everyone's got to tell except I think for you or whatever. And that's sort of like quite poignant that she.

Plays the best game of poker in the whole film, really. Chris, are you a big Bondophile? I

Cris: Oh, I, I was always a, a fan of the franchise. I have to say the, the first one I really remember is obviously the Pierce Brosnan ones, because that's was kind of when I was growing up and, and stuff. And we've never really watched, I've watched the other ones with Sean Connery and Roger Moore and all that after I was a bit older because you do whatever you want, Dan.

Don't worry. Um, But when I watched them after I watched the p Brosnan once. Just because we didn't have access to it in communist Romania, but I do enjoy them. I can't tell you which one is my favorite one. Although I have to

Reegs: because they all blur into one big bond movie that happened before this franchise, basically.

Cris: Probably, no, but probably I didn't understand what the reference was, so if it's a

Reegs: It's just

Pete: it's basically like, just completely dismissing every bond film that's ever gone before, which is

Reegs: little bit, yeah.

Pete: yeah, we, we, we we're gonna do a bond week and we can get it right into

Dan: go all

Cris: don't know, I enjoyed it and it was good and...

Pete: But yeah, strong recommend.

Reegs: strong recommend. It made a bajillion, I know side always does that bit with the box office. It cost a bajillion and it made like six times bajillion so,

Dan: So, bajillion's in

Reegs: Yeah, strong, strong numbers. It's still a strong recommend for me,

Cris: Also, I have to say a, a big shout out to Evergreen. I really like her and I think in this one she, because she's French, you can't really tell She's French, at least for me, from the accent. And she normally sounds French in most of her movies. But not in this one, I think she, she had a really nice accent, she kind of played really well.

I wish she was more naked a bit more, but,

Pete: Yeah, all the time.

Reegs: yeah, think that goes

Cris: strong recommend.

Reegs: goes for all of us, doesn't

Dan: doesn't it? Casio Royale. No.