Casino Royale (2006)
d. Martin Campbell, 144 minutes

Opening Credits, Title Sequence

The film opened with a black and white action pre title-credits sequence that then led to a black/white, stylized, markedly-different gun-barrel sequence. This was the first time in the Bond series that the gun-barrel wasn't at the very start of the film. Bond (Craig) was filmed in a white-tiled bathroom, where he abruptly turned and fired, rather than walking into the space. The film then turned slowly to color after the blood washed down, as the title credits appeared. This was also the first Bond film without images of women in the title sequence. Main Title Sequence: Designed by Daniel Kleinman Title Song: "You Know My Name" (sung by Chris Cornell)

Film Plot Summary

After a black/white MGM logo, the B/W pre-title credits sequence began - the setting was Prague (Czech Republic), where James Bond (Daniel Craig) was introduced as an agent before he was granted a license to kill and only elevated to double-0 status after completing two kills. The first of his kills occurred late at night as corrupt MI6 section chief John Dryden (Malcolm Sinclair) entered his 6th floor office and noticed his opened safe behind a picture. From behind, a seated Bond confronted Dryden and told him he shouldn't be "selling secrets" to an unknown source. When Dryden reached for a gun in his desk drawer, he mentioned: "Shame. We barely got to know each other," but his gun clicked empty - it had been emptied of bullets by Bond. The agent then described how he had already made his first kill - Dryden's underworld contact Fisher (Daud Shah). Fisher's death by drowning in a washroom sink and by gunshot was seen in flashback sequences during their hand-to-hand combat (# 1 death, # 1 Bond kill). Dryden was mid-sentence about how easy the second kill would be easier ("Made you feel it, did he? Well, you needn't worry. The second is...") when Bond shot him dead and added: "Yes. Considerably." (# 2 death, # 2 Bond kill) [Note: the killing of Fisher in the washroom signaled the start of the gun-barrel sequence.]

The film then opened in Mbale, Uganda in the midst of a civil war and during a torrential rainstorm at a large army camp, where 'freedom-fighting' terrorist mercenary Steven Obanno (Isaach De Bankole) briefly spoke with international mastermind Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) who had arranged for an introductory meeting before the arrival of scheming financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) (with a bleeding cut over and through his left eye). The villainous Le Chiffre, using a benzedrine inhaler, was there to provide illegal banking services - he promised to keep suitcases full of cash safe for Obanno. After the deal, which Le Chiffre assured was "no risk," he phoned one of his stock market operatives and instructed a bet (with Obanno's funds) against the Skyfleet company - a short sale with the purchase of put options: "Short another million shares of Skyfleet stock...Just do it." [His evil intent was to bankrupt the Skyfleet company by blowing up their prototype jet-plane, thereby profiting by making millions.]

The next sequence was set in the African-island nation of Madagascar at a crowded local mongoose-cobra fight, where Bond (and a second junior agent Carter (Joseph Millson)) were tracking a scar-faced, freelance terrorist bomb-maker named Mollaka (Sebastien Foucan). Bond's assignment was to fight the funding of terrorism. When the suspect received a text message ("Ellipsis"), Mollaka became suspicious after Carter kept touching his earpiece and blew their cover, and he made a run for it. During a long, spectacular foot chase sequence through jungle and into an ocean-side construction site, Bond hotly pursued Mollaka - at one point commandeering a large New Holland bulldozer-tractor. As both scaled steel girders high in the sky, three individuals lost their lives (one construction worker was pushed and two police guards were shot by Mollaka (# 3-5 deaths)). Both of them scaled cables on towering cranes and fought precariously before jumping to the ground and free-running through other buildings under construction.

The chase ended at the Nambutu Embassy (Mollaka was an employee there), where security alarms sounded and Bond found himself under-fire and breaching diplomatic protocol. He grabbed Mollaka as a hostage and used him as a human shield, as Mollaka was shot in the leg (number of other deaths unknown). Bond threw his hostage out a second-floor office window into a courtyard, and then, when cornered and surrounded by troops, he surrendered and dropped his weapon, but quickly drew a second gun from his belt, killed Mollaka (# 6 death, # 3 Bond kill), and shot at a gas tank-canister to cause a massive explosion and cover his escape (number of deaths unknown). He fled with Mollaka's backpack containing a bomb and cell phone (later, he used the text message to trace his next target to the Bahamas).

Le Chiffre's yacht was moored somewhere in the Bahamas, where his blonde partner Valenka (Ivana Milicevic), in a deep V-necked blue one-piece suit, climbed up a ladder from the water and strolled past his card-game table. The ruthless, calculating villain explained his eye ailment to his gaming opponent: "Weeping blood comes merely from a derangement of the tear duct....Nothing sinister." After winning the game, he was summoned to a computer to read the news regarding an article about Bond's murder of Mollaka: "British government agent kills unarmed prisoner."

In London, England after a parliament meeting, Bond's superior M (Judi Dench) complained to personal assistant Villiers (Tobias Menzies) about her "stupid" agent's "deranged" and "embarrassing" recent actions that were caught on the Embassy's security CCTV, and became front-page news. She regretted his new status: "I give him double-0 status, and he celebrates by shooting up an embassy."

Bond removed the memory card from Mollaka's cell-phone, and with a MI6 computer scanner was able to trace the location of the "Ellipsis" call to the Bahamas (Paradise Island, the Ocean Club). When M returned to her penthouse apartment, she found Bond in her living room (he had broken in and was using her computer for decoding), and reprimanded him in person for his "over-developed trigger finger" and for invading the foreign embassy ("We wanted to question him, not to kill him!...We're trying to find out how an entire network of terrorist groups is financed and you give us one bomb-maker"). When he said he knew her real name, she threatened to have him killed if he uttered it. She regretted his premature promotion, although he assured her that his life-expectancy and her mistake would be "short-lived." She cautioned him about being arrogant and therefore not self-aware - he responded: "So you want me to be half-monk, half hit-man?" She replied: "Any thug can kill. I want you to take your ego out of the equation and to judge the situation dispassionately." Since she didn't trust him, she ordered him out of her sight: "Go and stick your head in the sand somewhere and think about your future." Fed up with her agent, she said that she was "seriously considering feeding" him to the bad guys.

The next scene was set in Nassau (the Bahamas), where Bond landed and viewed a luxurious and sleek yacht (Le Chiffre's) on the water. He drove along the coast in a Ford Mondeo vehicle, using his Sony Ericsson cellphone's GPS to lead him to the Ocean Club. As he noted security cameras around the facility, he was mistaken for the valet when a guest tossed his Range Rover keys to him. Bond purposely crashed the vehicle in the hotel's parking lot to cause a security distraction. In the vacated security office, he found a CD backup with video of the exact time of the "Ellipsis" call. Now knowing the make of the sender's car from the video, he registered for a Ocean Club room and asked the pretty blonde receptionist (Christina Cole) to identify the owner of the 1964 Aston Martin whose door he claimed to have nicked. The owner was identified as "middleman" associate Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian) who had a house "just up the beach." In the next scene set in front of the Dimitrios beach house, Bond watched from the ocean (emerging in the style of Ursula Andress in Dr. No (1962)) as beautiful Solange Dimitrios (Caterina Murino), wearing a green bikini, made a stunning entrance riding a white horse on the beach. They exchanged momentary sexy glances, as her husband watched from the balcony.

While a guest in a beachfront villa at the Ocean Club, Bond cleverly used M's username and password and with his computer laptop logged into MI6's database to look up known associates of Alex Dimitrios. One of them was suspicious banker/accountant Le Chiffre, with activity in Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Africa, and South America. That evening at the club's bar-casino, Bond joined a gambling poker table where Dimitrios was playing. When Solange entered, wearing a sexy low-cut red dress, she was reprimanded by her husband for being two hours late, and sat bored at the bar. Bond defeated an overconfident Dimitrios with three Aces (over three Kings) and won the keys to his Aston Martin. As Solange was about to enter the gold-colored vehicle brought by the valet, she realized, mistakenly that Bond was the new owner, and said to herself: "No wonder he was in such a foul mood." He offered her a lift home, but she politely declined. However, Bond suavely convinced her to join him at his "very" close place nearby for "one drink." He drove around for a few minutes and returned to the front of the club ("Welcome to my home"). At the same time, her husband was being questioned and scolded by Le Chiffre on his yacht for dealing with bomb terrorist Mollaka - "under surveillance by the British Secret Service." Le Chiffre was concerned about the stock he had invested in, with Obanno's money, and adamant that Dimitrios not fail in finding a reliable replacement for Mollaka now that he was dead.

Lying on the floor of his villa, Bond passionately kissed the married Dimitrios woman - she said that she was irresistibly attracted to "bad men" and to Bond, still knowing that he might sleep with her in order to get information about her husband. When her husband interrupted their conversation with a cellphone call, she learned he would be gone until the next day, leaving on the last flight to Miami that evening. She then informed Bond: "You have all night to question me." He called room service for more champagne, chilled Bollinger, and beluga caviar, as Solange retreated to his bedroom (# 1 tryst).

After his late-night love-making, Bond had enough time to follow after Dimitrios to Miami that same evening - he sped in a taxi to downtown Miami's Science Center, following Dimitrios inside where there was an exhibit of Body Worlds. Bond watched as Dimitrios left his checked bag token on a stack of gambling chips in one of the exhibits. But then Dimitrios pointed a knife at Bond's back - 007 quickly spun around and grabbed his wrist, then used a head-fake distraction, punched him, and stabbed Dimitrios to death with his own knife (# 7 death, # 4 Bond kill). He left the body lying in a chair. After noting another recent sent text message to Ellipsis (+12425550199) on Dimitrios' cellphone, and the missing token and bag, Bond raced to the front entrance. He called the Ellipsis number and spotted Dimitrios' new target-contact walking away with the bag. By taxi, he trailed the man, identified as Carlos (Claudio Santamaria), to Miami's International Airport.

Bond saw that Carlos changed into a policeman's uniform (found in Dimitrios' bag) in a clothing store's dressing room, and entered a secure area. He guessed that the Ellipsis phone number was the code needed to enter (E-L-L-I-P-S-I-S), and gained access to the restricted area. At the same time, Carlos set off the emergency sprinkler system, causing mass panic, to allow himself unrestrained entrance to the runway area in a stolen police car. He commandeered a Texron refueling tanker-truck after breaking the driver's neck (# 8 death), and then attached a small keyring bomb to its undercarriage. He drove toward a Skyfleet S570 prototype jet airplane being unveiled and launched - as Bond chased after him to foil the terrorist plot. Bond jumped atop the tanker from a portable aircraft stairway ramp, and the two struggled against each other, as Bond dangled from the side of the tanker and Carlos drove wildly to try to dislodge him. Bond was almost hit by an oncoming platform truck but he jumped free, then climbed back on - although the tanker dangerously collided with various aircraft vehicles including an elongated bus. At one point as they struggled inside the cab, the tanker was almost struck by an incoming airplane (which aborted its landing). [During the fight, Bond noticed the detonator keyring, unclipped it and attached it to Carlos' belt loop.] Carlos jumped clear of the tanker just as it was about to ram into the Skyfleet jumbo jet, but Bond prevented impact by crashing into police vehicles, steering it away and coming to a swerving stop at the last second. Bond was arrested by airport personnel, and smugly watched as Carlos detonated the key-ring with his cellphone - and killed himself (# 9 death, # 5 Bond kill).

An Albanian, chess prodigy and "mathematical genius" poker player, Le Chiffre - "a private banker to the world's terrorists," lost $101,206,000 as a result of his foiled plot against Skyfleet, and he hypothesized: "Someone talked." He was desperate to recover Obanno's (and other creditors') funds that he had invested - and then lost due to Bond's intervention. Suspecting that Dimitrios' wife was somehow involved, Le Chiffre had her tortured for information and then killed. Bond was summoned back to the Bahamas where he came upon the brutally-murdered corpse of Solange, lying in a beachside hammock (# 10 death). M was dismayed with 007: "Quite the body count you're stacking up." She asked Bond: "Did she know anything that could compromise you?" - he said simply, "No." To follow her agent's movements more closely, M had his fore-arm injected with a microchip implant transmitter-tracking device. M explained how Bond's next objective was to thwart and frustrate Le Chiffre's desire to recoup his losses. He had set up a high-stakes poker tournament/game of Hold 'Em at the Casino Royale in Montenegro located in SE Europe ("Ten players, $10 million dollar buy-in, $5 million rebuy. Winner takes all, potentially $150 million"). M ordered Le Chiffre captured alive, explaining that MI6 wanted to force Le Chiffre to seek sanctuary with them, in exchange for information: "Le Chiffre doesn't have $100 million to lose...If he loses, he'll have nowhere to run. We'll give him sanctuary in return for everything he knows."

On a train to Montenegro, Bond was paired up with HM Treasury Financial Action Task Force liaison officer Vesper Lynd (Eva Green). She sat across from him and introduced herself: "I'm the money." He looked her up and down: "Every penny of it." She would manage the financial funds he would use to play poker (as a professional gambler) against Le Chiffre - she had wired $10 million into his Montenegro account, and $5 million more would be used as a contingency if deemed "a prudent investment." As they ate dinner together, they wittily bantered back and forth. Bond claimed he was astute at "reading people" and "bluffing" during a game of luck. He critiqued her as being insecure about her beauty and thus overcompensated by wearing masculine clothing: "Your beauty's a problem. You worry you won't be taken seriously." She countered by assessing his psychological profile, believing he disdainfully dressed up, and didn't "come from money." He had a chip on his shoulder because charity afforded him to go to school, and he was orphaned. She thought he was "maladjusted" but refrained from calling him "a cold-hearted bastard" but still imagined that he thought of women "as disposable pleasures rather than meaningful pursuits." Although she regarded him as "charming," she affirmed she would keep a close watch on the government's money and off his "perfectly-formed arse."

Their cover story was that Vesper was to masquerade as Bond's love interest at the Hotel Splendid in a shared two-bedroom suite. He would be Mr. Arlington Beech, a professional gambler, and joked that her name was Miss Stephanie Broadchest. She asked about the sleeping arrangements: "Am I going to have a problem with you, Bond?" He answered that since she was single, she needn't worry: "No, don't worry, you're not my type." At the hotel, Bond was given a parcel sent from M containing keys to a sleek, grayish-black Aston Martin DBS V12 parked outside (with glove compartment containing Bond's Walther P99, defibrillator and poison antidotes). The two met with MI6 ally-contact Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), who briefed them about Le Chiffre's arrival a day earlier and his acquaintance with the corrupt chief of police. Mathis had faked documents that would cause the chief of police to soon be arrested for bribery. Before the big game, Bond ordered Vesper to wear a purple dress with plunging neckline so that she would distract the other players. She countered by providing him with a dinner jacket fitted to his size: "I sized you up the moment we met."

In the Salon Prive of Casino Royale, Le Chiffre introduced himself to Beech/Bond, knowing his identity. The game was no-limit hold 'em poker, each player with a $10 million buy-in to start (although a further $5 million buy-in could be made by electronic transfer). To start, Bond was required to enter a six-character password for his account by Swiss banker Mr. Mendel (Ludget Pistor). [Bond's password was V-E-S-P-E-R.] Part-way into the game, Vesper made a grand entrance in her plunging purple gown, but her late entrance backfired and she actually distracted Bond during his betting. When Bond took a break from the game and kissed her (to create a new "cover"), she said she was "pissed off" that he was losing so quickly. Bond explained to Mathis and Vesper that he had figured out Le Chiffre's tell - "the twitch he has to hide when he bluffs." During an intermission when Le Chiffre left his inhaler behind, Bond inserted a tracking-device "bug" into it. In his 4th floor room, Le Chiffre found Valenka on his balcony - she was forced to summon him there, where he was attacked by Ugandan terrorist Steven Obanno who was angered by the loss of his money ("Where is my money?"). Threatened with strangulation, Le Chiffre assured him: "Your money is safe. You'll have it tomorrow. All of it." For the betrayal, Obanno threatened to cut off the hand of Le Chiffre with his machete, but he needed it to play cards. He bluffed cutting off Valenka's arm, without a word of protest from Le Chiffre, after which Obanno suggested to her: "You should find a new boyfriend." As Obanno and his bodyguard left the suite, they noticed Bond and Vesper kissing in the hallway - the bodyguard spotted Bond's earpiece and drew his gun and fired. Bond killed the bodyguard by heaving his body down the stairwell (# 11 death, # 6 Bond kill), and then fought to the death down the stairs to the ground floor as Obanno swung wildly at him with a machete. Eventually, with Vesper's help, Obanno was strangled (# 12 death, # 7 Bond kill). [The two bodies were later removed by Mathis, and the killings were blamed on one of Le Chiffre's framed henchmen.]

After cleaning up and changing his blood-stained shirt, Bond returned to the gaming table, and taunted Le Chiffre with an unsubtle, critical comment about his eye: "I won't consider myself to be in trouble until I start weeping blood." During a second break in the game, Bond found Vesper sitting under the shower in their suite's bathroom, clearly distraught over helping to kill Obanno ("It's like there's blood on my hands, it's not coming off"). Bond assured and comforted her by kissing her hand. During the next day's game, Bond lost everything in his initial stake when he called Le Chiffre's suspected bluff - he lost a full house to four jacks. When he requested another $5 million to buy back in, Vesper refused, claiming his ego and recklessness made him lose ("You lost because of your ego and that same ego can't take it...All you're going to do now is lose more"). He called her "a bloody idiot." Desperate, Bond grabbed a table knife and pursued Le Chiffre to the hotel entrance to stab him to death, but he was restrained by CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), a fellow player who introduced himself on the stairway as a "brother from Langley." Leiter proposed to stake Bond with enough funds to reenter the tournament, in exchange for having the CIA bring in Le Chiffre.

During the next series of games, Valenka slyly poisoned Bond's drink, forcing 007 to hurriedly leave the table. He stumbled into the washroom, drank water to dilute to poison, and then ran to his Aston Martin. Knowing he was suffering from cardiac arrest, he contacted MI6 in London which instructed him to place electronic leads from a portable AED (automated external defibrillator) to his chest, and then inject himself with Lidocaine, a poison/chemical antidote. He was instructed to take one of the combi-pens and inject himself in a neck vein, to counteract the digitalis, before pushing the red button to activate the defibrillator. Luckily, Vesper saved his life when he passed out and reattached one of the disconnected defibrillator electrodes to his heart. Without going to the hospital, Bond unexpectedly returned to the game, joking loudly: "That last hand, it nearly killed me." After more intense betting at the gaming table during the suspenseful showdown, Le Chiffre was finally defeated when there was $115 million in the pot, and his full-house hand (of Aces and sixes) was below Bond's straight flush (of four to the eight of spades).

With a celebration in order for his winning, Bond ate a fancy dinner with Vesper. She told him how the American CIA was readied to extract Le Chiffre before dawn. He commented on her necklace, calling it an Algerian love knot - given to her by a "very lucky man" (later revealed to be her French Algerian boyfriend). After she questioned his brutal occupation of killing people, she was called away by Mathis. Bond suspected foul-play and rushed to the hotel entrance to see Vesper pushed into Le Chiffre's black Jaguar XJ8 during an abduction, and he pursued in his Aston Martin. At the top of a small hill, Bond swerved his car violently to the right to avoid hitting Vesper who was bound up and lying in the middle of the road. After a series of flips in the scary car crash, Le Chiffre's right-hand man removed the tracking device from Bond's forearm and the two were taken prisoner. They were both taken to a dark warehouse facility, separated, and Bond was stripped naked and forced to sit on a cane chair with its bottom cut out. Sadistically, Le Chiffre used a swinging, thick knotted rope to painfully torture and whip Bond's genitals, to pressure him into revealing his account password so that he could regain his lost winnings ("I want the money"). [Vesper would supply the account number.] Le Chiffre warned: "There will be little left to identify you as a man." Bond defiantly and brashly taunted Le Chiffre while in excruciating pain as he was struck repeatedly: "I've got a little itch, down there. Would you mind?...No! No! No! No! No! To the right. To the right! To the right!...Aargh! Yeah! Ahh! Ahh! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes...! Now the whole world's gonna know that you died scratching my balls!" Bond vowed he would not tell the password and Le Chiffre's enemies would eventually hunt him down and kill him. Le Chiffre promised if Bond divulged the password that fellow prisoner Vesper would live. Bond refused, so Le Chiffre kicked over his chair and threatened to castrate him with a knife: "I'll feed you what you seem not to value." Bond was saved when abruptly, gunshots were heard and Mr. White entered. Le Chiffre asserted he would get the money, but White ignored him, reiterating that trust was more important than money ("Money isn't as valuable to our organization as knowing who to trust"), and shot Le Chiffre in the forehead. (# 13 death) All of Le Chiffre's associates were also killed (number of deaths unknown), but Vesper and Bond survived.

When Bond slightly revived, he heard the name "Francesco" and he called out Vesper's name. Somebody spared him, speaking "Not him." Later, when Bond was still recovering at Lake Como, Mathis asked why his life (and Vesper's) were spared. Bond was suspicious that Mathis might be a double-agent and refused to answer questions, and soon after Bond had him arrested. Mathis was stunned and dragged away by MI6 agents. Vesper awakened Bond and commented on his look: "It makes me feel reborn." He replied: "If you'd just been born, wouldn't you be naked?" She whispered in his ear: "You have me there. You can have me anywhere...Yeah, here, there, anywhere you like." She affirmed to his question: "Does this mean you're warming to me?" and described her changing feelings: "I'm afraid I'm a complicated woman." They were interrupted by Mr. Mendel, who asked that they type in the account number and Bond's password in order to facilitate the exchange of Bond's poker winnings -- $120 million - to the account. When Mendel left, Vesper confided in Bond about her love for him: "If all that was left of you was your smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than anyone I've ever met." He quipped: "That's because you know what I can do with my little finger." She was afraid he had again put up an emotional barrier: "You've got your armor back on." He claimed he loved her: "I have no armor left. You've stripped it from me... Whatever is left of me, whatever I am, I'm yours." They kissed and when it began raining, they entered one of the clinic's rooms and made love after tearing off each other's clothes (# 2 tryst).

For a couple of days, they spent an idyllic time on the beaches of Italy. There, Bond told Vesper how he had suspected that Mathis was a double agent - Mathis had tipped off Le Chiffre about how Bond had learned of his 'tell' and tracking implant - "That's how he wiped me out. Same goes for the implant." She asked: "Does everyone have a tell?" Bond replied: "Yes, everyone. Everyone except you. I wonder if that's why I love you." She was stunned by his profession of love. He continued: "Enough to quit and float round the world with you until one of us has to find an honest job. But I think that's gonna have to be you. Because I've no idea what an honest job is." He wished to "salvage" what little humanity he had left before it was too late.

As they sailed into Venice canal port on the SPIRIT yacht, Bond sent in his resignation (by email) to M. Vesper noticed a mysterious individual on the dock with a panama hat and one blacked-out lens, later identified as bad-guy Gettler (Richard Sammel). Bond noticed that Vesper had stopped wearing the necklace of her boyfriend. They left their hotel together, as he went to get supplies and she went to the bank (actually she had plans to meet Gettler), planning to rendezvous again in one-half hour. While she was gone, he received a phone call from M, informing him that the Treasury Department had not received the wired winning poker funds. He phoned Mr. Mendel who said the money was transferred to the account number typed in by Vesper. And the funds were being transferred as they spoke, at the Venice bank located at St. Mark's Square. Bond trailed Vesper as she carried the funds in a briefcase and walked through the streets of Venice. He killed one henchman in the shadows of an abandoned building being renovated (# 14 death, # 8 Bond kill). He watched as she met with Gettler and another man in a courtyard and handed over the funds. When Bond showed himself, the three fled (Vesper was taken as hostage) as two other men with machine-guns opened fire. Vesper was in a locked cage-elevator in the building when Bond fired on large floating pontoons to flood the lower part of the building and to escape the gunfire.

The building began to crumble and sink into the canal as the firefight progressed. Bond attacked and sent one of the two goons into the flooding water, as Gettler vainly reached for the briefcase which fell off a ledge into the cascading water, and then accidentally wounded his own man (battling with Bond) before the collapsing elevator crushed him (# 15 death, # 9 Bond kill). The second goon fell into the water and drowned (# 16 death, # 10 Bond kill). The third henchmen struggled against Bond, and was electrocuted with a live electric cable to the heart (# 17 death, # 11 Bond kill). Gettler was killed when Bond shot him in the right eye with a nail gun (# 18 death, # 12 Bond kill). As Bond tried to save Vesper, she apologized, and locked herself in the iron cage, just before it plunged into the water below the disintegrating building. She knew that her betrayal and treachery couldn't be excused, and she kissed Bond's hand to remove the guilt associated with her inevitable death. He couldn't save her life as she was trapped and drowned (# 19 death) in the long, drawn-out and tearjerking scene. Although he eventually freed her from a watery grave and took her to the surface (atop the collapsed building) and administered CPR, it was too late. Mr. White watched the tragic death from afar, and then walked off with the briefcase containing $120 million.

In a debriefing, M explained (by phone) to Bond what had led to Vesper's 'betrayal': "She had a boyfriend, a French Algerian. They were very much in love. He was kidnapped by the organization behind Le Chiffre. And they blackmailed her, threatening to kill him unless she cooperated." Bond still believed that Mathis was not cleared of guilt. Bond bitterly and coldly reflected back about Vesper's manipulative treason, unaware of her real motives, and now knowing that he can't trust anyone: "The job's done and the bitch is dead." But then he discovered that Vesper had actually tried to save him, by leaving behind her cellphone with a clue. M hypothesized that Vesper had made a deal to spare Bond's life in exchange for the money. He learned the identity of her blackmailer in a cellphone text message that she had left for him ("For James, Mr. White") with White's phone number (# 3926222431), and realized that she didn't betray him. She had actually revealed the identity of the treacherous mastermind (behind the plot to fund terrorism).

In the final scene, Bond traced and pursued Mr. White to his estate in the Lake Como area. After phoning White with the number Vesper left, he watched as White answered, and then vengefully shot White in the leg. He stood over the wounded man who crawled to his steps, to announce his identity with the film's final words: "The name's Bond. James Bond."

Film Notables (Awards, Facts, etc.)

The 21st film in the series.

The first of five films (through 2020) with Daniel Craig as a more macho, lean, mean, and direct James Bond - who also saw the tragic demise of his doomed, raven-haired, green-eyed love interest Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) - her name was a play on 'West Berlin.' He was the first blond-haired Bond character. This film was considered a back-to-basics reboot of the series-franchise, rather than a sequel or a prequel (although the next film was a continuing story).

The opening of the film was in black and white. It was the only Bond film (to date) with any sequence filmed in black/white.

There was no Miss Moneypenny character in this film (or the next film) - the first time in the entire series. Q was also conspicuously absent.

With a production budget of $150 million, and gross revenue of $167.4 million (domestic) and $616.5 million (worldwide). It became (unadjusted for inflation) the highest-grossing Bond film of all time, even surpassing Craig's next film Quantum of Solace (2008) at $589.6 million (worldwide), until the release of Skyfall (2012).

Only one of two Bond films (to date) with the seriously-in-love Bond Girl ending up deceased.

To date, at 144 minutes, it was the longest film in the Bond series - even including Skyfall (2012) at 143 minutes, although Spectre (2015) topped all of them at 148 minutes..

Set-pieces: the spectacular Madagascar foot chase ending with shootout at Nambutu Embassy, the pursuit after Carlos at Miami's International Airport, Bond's fight against Obanno in a stairwell, the suspenseful showdown at the gaming table, and the concluding conflict in a sinking Venetian building.

Bond Villains: Steven Obanno (Isaach De Bankole), Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian), Carlos (Claudio Santamaria), Gettler (Richard Sammel)

Bond Girls: Solange Dimitrios (Caterina Murino), Valenka (Ivana Milicevic), Vesper Lynd (Eva Green)

Number of Love-Making Encounters: 2

Film Locales: Prague, Czech Republic, Mbale, Uganda, Madagascar, Bahamas (Nassau/Paradise Island), London, England, Miami, Florida USA, Montenegro, Serbia, Lake Como and Venice, Italy

Gadgets: Vaio laptop computer (with scanner of cellphone memory card to map call location), Sony Ericsson K800 cellphone (with GPS and digital camera), explosive key-ring bomb, microchip arm-implant transmitter-tracking device, a second tracking device "bug" (placed in Le Chiffre's inhaler), high-tech first aid safety kit including portable AED (automated external defibrillator) and anti-poison/chemical combi-pens

Vehicles: New Holland bulldozer-tractor, Le Chiffre's Yacht, Bond's Ford Mondeo (Contour), Range Rover, gold Aston Martin DB5, Skyfleet S570 prototype jet, grayish black, sleek Aston Martin DBS V12 (with glove compartment containing Bond's Walther P99, and poison antidotes), Le Chiffre's and Mr. White's Jaguar XJ8, SPIRIT yacht

Number of Deaths (Bond Kills): 19 (12)