Casino Royale (2006 film)/Headscratchers

• How does the news media know who Bond is and who he works for? Aren't they supposed to be top secret?
  • I thought SPECTRE leaked that information. Considering the depth of their contacts, they certainly knew who he was.
    • I dunno about this. At this point, Bond had already gotten the info he needed, and thus SPECTRE had little motivation to possibly tip their hand (pun unintended) by putting him in the doghouse for a few days. If M hadn't had her head so far up her ass during this movie, she would have realized that MI 6 had at least one well-placed mole leaking info and done some plugging.
    • He was probably ID'ed by the embassy or its government, who would have been suitably pissed enough to seriously investigate . They or the native government may have also been aware that MI6 were conducting a sting operation on that guy (esp. if they caught Bond's partner), and someone leaked it. The media don't actually know who Bond is; they just know he's a British agent.
  • Also, are we supposed to believe that some of the greatest Texas Hold 'Em players in the world would be so easily distracted in the beginning of the game by a single girl?
    • When that girl is the stunning Eva Green in a jaw-dropping dress, the answer is a resounding yes.
    • I didn't think they were necessarily the best players, just rich ones. Le Chiffre certainly wouldn't have intentionally brought a bunch of pros who could have busted him.
      • This. The point of the tournament was that even after everyone bought into it, Le Chiffre would be able to walk away with a profit even if he didn't win (though he was clearly counting on doing so).
• I really don't get why MI 6, after deciding to put Vesper in control of the money used in the game, didn't do a background check on her. If they had, they would have noticed that her boyfriend/fiance (I forget which) had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. They probably would have realized that she was a weak link (as that fact could be used to manipulate her) and had her removed in favor of someone else. M does a Hand Wave by lamely stating that they sometimes get so focused on their enemies they forget to check on their friends. Thats a weaksauce excuse and she knows it. M and MI 6 really do not come out of this movie looking too smart.
  • Justification: As revealed in 'Quantum of Solace' her boyfriend had not actually been kidnapped; he'd been a Quantum agent all along. The background check would have revealed nothing as nobody except Vesper knew this 'kidnapping' even existed.
  • Plus, Quantum of Solace shows the bad guys are very, very good at covering their tracks and infiltrating MI-6.
• So...the plan was for Vesper to be in charge of all of that money...w/o any oversight? Really?
  • She is the oversight. The one they don't want in charge of it is Bond, given his inexperience and the mess he'd got them into. Plus, she represents the treasury, who is funding the op, and if she is their representative they aren't very impressed with the idea.
    • Mathis was the oversight, and they mistakenly arrested and tortured him. Not a good idea.
    • No, Mathis was their support team. Above poster had it right, Vesper was the oversight sent from the treasury, that's why Bond has to ask her for the money to buy back in after he loses the initial money, and she can refuse.
• Bond walks into the embassy and kidnaps the bomber at gunpoint. Couldn't he have just explained to the diplomat he was British intelligence, why he was there and escorted the bomber out?
  • Embassies don't work that way. In the most amicable case, it'd take hours, days, possibly weeks of red tape because the Embassy is treated as property of the other country, and if it's a non-extradition country, then Bond is SOL entirely. In the least amicable case, the diplomat won't even listen to Bond and have the bomber shipped back home never to be seen again.
    • Actually, I can see two even less amicable cases below that one. One is that the bomber claims Bond assaulted him, the diplomat has Bond arrested for attacking one of their citizens and has him tried as a terrorist. (Or at the very least, turns him over to the host country's law enforcement, tying him up in red tape even worse than just diplomatic red tape.) Worst case scenario, corrupt embassy official shoots Bond in the head, takes payoff from the bomber, says "He was never here and if he was we'll claim he tried to start a war, whatcha gonna do about it?"
• How does MI 6 even know that Bond is the best baccarat/Texas hold'em player in the service? do they have try outs? Is that part of their training?
  • I imagine they just do it for fun, and MI 6 asked around when gambling became part of the mission.
  • Why wouldn't it be part of their training? Poker requires a lot of skills that a secret agent finds invaluable: Reading people, controlling your own emotions, telling lies with body language, evaluating risks, and it's a common pastime for the sort of high-class playboy villains that Bond seems to always encounter.
  • As a member of the scecret service, Bond would face regular vetting, at least part of which would focus on his finances. So there'd be a lot of a conversations along the lines of 'Does Bond gamble a lot? Yes, but don't worry about his finances, he always wins'.
  • In the novel version, Bond is picked for this job at least partly because he does have actual training to gamble - as preparation for a prior mission that required him to do a prolonged investigation in a casino, the Service had paid for him to take lessons from a professional casino dealer and retired card-sharp.
• Bond kills Dimitrios in the middle of a crowded museum, puts the body down, gives it a friendly pat on the cheek, and then walks out right in front of security. Nobody has any reaction to any of this. WHAT???
  • He kills him very quietly. Neither of them make a noise, and there doesn't seem to be any excess blood. That was rather the point of the exchange, that both of them had good reason to keep things quiet and out of the open.
  • Yeah, it's basically the same as that scene in Commando when Arnold snaps that guy's neck while they're in a crowded plane. The guy is dead so quickly and quietly that even if anyone saw it they don't know what happened. They just assume the dead guy is napping, and by the time anyone figures out he's dead Arnold/Bond is already miles away.
• Why would M threaten Bond when it appears that he is going to say her real name out loud? Even if someone eavesdrops, there wouldn't be much point in hiding it given the content of the rest of their conversation. Could it be that it is a really embarassing one?
  • I think it was mainly to make clear her point that it was classified. She instantly shut him up, so he knew how thin the line he was treading.
    • While I think you're right about her reminding him of how thin the ice he was on was, I think it had more to do with him invading her personal life and personal information rather than anything to do with it being classified.
  • *puts on Doyle hat* It's, I think, also a nod to the audience that M's name will never be revealed in the canon. Much like how The Simpsons keeps reminding us that we still don't know where Springfield is.
    • Her first name is revealed in Skyfall. It's "Emma".
  • I had interpreted as her being too angry with Bond over what happened in Madagascar to even care what he had to say at that moment and just wanted him to shut up.
  • M is the head of the entire British Intelligence service. Everything about her is probably classified. If an eavesdropper heard the rest of their conversation he would only have information about the specific operation they were talking about. If an eavesdropper heard M's real name then they would be able to find her home, her family, her friends, etc.
    • The real nameof the head of MI 6, the actual SIS is not just public record, it's on their web page. The real "C" is Sir John Sawers
      • That's the real MI 6 though. In the Bond-verse, it would not be out of character in the least for MI 6 to have a public face and a private leader.
      • I always assumed it was basically a joke, that her name was so ugly and embarrassing that she didn't want anyone talking about it.
  • It's far simpler than all of that. Bond had already crossed a number of personal lines with her, he was about to cross one more and she was warning him that it was going to be the one that was too far. It didn't really matter what line it was, that just happened to be it. He probably could have started talking about the town she was born in and she'd have reacted the same.
• In the final hand of the poker game, James goes all in, along with Le Chiffre and two others. Yet they clearly are all holding different amounts of chips. Bond takes everyone out in a single hand, which means he was the chip leader, which in turn means he literally can't go all in - he can only match the next-highest better. Furthermore, everything is put into the main pot. There should be two side-pots since you can only win an amount from each better equal to what you put in. This is obviously Artistic License since it would be more complicated to explain all that than to just have everyone go all in (not to mention Rule of Drama since it's more suspenseful if we think Bond might lose everything), but it makes any actual poker players scratch their heads.
  • After the betting at the flop, Bond had 40.5 million, Le Chiffre had 39.5 million (the other two had 6 million and 5 million, and there was 24 million in the pot). If Le Chiffre won, Bond would be left with a meagre 1 million against Le Chiffre's 114 million; just losing one more big blind and he would then be out. So it wás an important hand for Bond.
  • But you're right, the filmmakers left out the side-pots; probably so that they wouldn't have to explain that to the movie audience (and possibly because Bond was so rude to splash the pot). So instead let's say the croupier was keeping track of the side-pots in his head (after all, if Mathis could keep track of all the bets from where he stood, then surely the croupier could). The last poker scene can be watched here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H 9 fy O Fefir Q.
• Why did Valenka stay with Le Chiffre after she very nearly had her arm cut off without a word of protest from him? Later in the casino, she not only helps him by poisoning Bond but doesn't even seem mad or cold toward him at any point. Hell, in that brief scene after he takes Bond for 10 million she seemed downright affectionate.
  • She already knew what kind of man Le Chiffre was before that, and is probably that kind of person herself. She and Le Chiffre are lovers, but that doesn't mean they are in love. She sticks around for the lifestyle, while he just wants a sexy bimbo to hang around him. They make it work.
    • Yeah, but why stick with Le Chiffre when there are plenty of rich men she could be with and live a considerably less dangerous lifestyle?
    • Because in the Bond 'verse All Girls Want Bad Boys. Dimitrios's ladyfriend expressly admits to it.
    • There's also that there are more beautiful women who are willing to sell themselves to rich men then there are rich men to sell to. Valenka's got a solid position with Le Chiffre, she's not going to leave it until after she gets a better offer firmly in hand... which is hardly a guaranteed thing given the already crowded market.
• All right, this has been bugging me for ages now. What the ruddy hell does the song at the beginning of Casino Royale have to do with James Bond? What angels has he seen, who is he replacing, and what merciless eyes has he deceived?
  • Don't know about those bits, but the "the coldest blood runs through my veins" is referencing the fact that 007 is an extremely cold-blooded Anti-Hero and "You Know My Name" is stating that James Bond really needs no introduction.
    • If "James Bond needs no introduction", why is there a reboot in the first place?
    • We the audience are familiar with Bond's schtick: that he's a secret agent who saves the world from evil men with grand schemes. "You know my name" references the fact that we associate things with James Bond. This movie does, however, serve as the introduction to this new version of Bond... all those things still apply to him, but his manner and style are noticeably different.
  • The "replacing" bit is obvious: Daniel Craig is replacing Pierce Brosnan.
    • While there's never much of a point in analyzing the lyrics of a Bond movie opening theme, the lyrics of "You Know My Name" seem to be about Bond's loss of humanity: "you might find out you're giving up something important by killing other people," "angels can fall from grace and you are definitely no angel," etc.
      • Oh. Yes, yes, yes. If we assume the singer to be some personification of moral decay, it makes perfect sense. Even the Merciless Eyes I've Deceived (the potholes illustrating why I've asked every James Bond fan I know) could be interpreted as the rather hostile viewpoint of society at large. Thanks a lot!
    • 'Angels falling from a height' would also seem to refer to Vesper, who Bond started out believing was beautiful and pure, and who definitely fell from grace.
    • The song makes the most sense if you imagine it is being sung by Bond to Vesper. He's describing her induction into the world of espionage from her comfortable world in the Treasury. "Arm yourself because no one else here will save you": Your reliance on others to protect you (the police, the army, the government) is pointless now, because the people we fight are ruthless beyond measure. "The odds will betray you": Vesper's death. "And I will replace you": By the next movie, you'll only be a memory, and I'll have a new Bond Girl.
      • It makes just as much sense if you think of it as being from M to Bond. Basically: "despite the tux and gadgets and flashy cars, you're just another grunt soldier I'm sending into the breach. One day your luck will run out and you will die, and I'll just send another soldier in without missing a beat or shedding a tear."
      • I always assumed the 'Angels falling' line was a reference to the ending of the 1968 Casino Royale.
      • A Fairly persistent memory, given that he drank 8 Vespers on the plane in Quantum of Solace.
• Why were the wires on Bond's defibrillator so lightly attached to the parts that they could fall out so easily? I know it was meant to be dramatic (Oh no! Bond's last hope has failed!), but that seems to be a major design flaw on a vital piece of equipment. What with every other piece of equipment in the film (not to mention the franchise) working perfectly, it seems jarring that this one should be poorly made.
  • Maybe they were yanked out by agents of Quantum. Those agents would know what to look for and where to look thanks to MI 6 moles.
    • Which would be the shoddiest assassination attempt ever made in a Bond film.
  • They're probably intended to be replaceable between uses. Thus they would be made to come out. They're not meant to come out easily and probably didn't... Bond's yanking things around quite a bit since he's not very steady, he probably just accidentally dislodged them. Either that or someone got sloppy and didn't attach them when they were putting the equipment in the car, so it didn't get detached because it was never attached in the first place... mistakes happen after all.
    • Correct. Due to concerns about infection, medical equipment is designed so that the parts that touch skin are easily disposable and replaceable.
• What DID happen to Felix Leiter steeping in to take out Le Chiffre? I understand that Mathis might have done something, but as of Quantum of Solace, he's innocent. Felix isn't dead either, as per Quantum of Solace. What happened?
  • Vesper said the CIA would extract Le Chiffre before dawn, but had already "made contact with" him (Which in of itself is bloody stupid!). Before then, Le Chiffre was killed by Mr White.
  • If Vesper was the one running messages back and forth between Bond and Leiter re: the when-and-where of Le Chiffre's pickup, then doesn't that make it pretty obvious what happened? We know she was a double agent, after all.

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