Shariq’s Département

Marc Forster, that German auteur of indie flicks like “Finding Neverland” and “Monster’s Ball”, takes on the James Bond franchise to create a wonderful new experience.

The action is visceral, violent and frenzied.  I’ve seen a lot of action movies in my time, and I was absolutely riveted by the opening chase sequence through the catacombs of Siena, Italy.  The motion and action is realistic and hard-edged; you can almost hear the bones cracking, the blood flowing.  Bond, as played by the sexy, brooding Daniel Craig is a ruthless, efficient machine, tracking down the enemy with panache, focus and relentless execution.  You feel the body blows.  You feel his desire to capture and bring harmony and justice to the world. 

This movie is a far cry from the pedestrian Bond movies of old.  While Sean Connery was sexy, he was Welsh.  And Pierce Brosnan was Irish.  So, having a blue-eyed Bond who actually speaks in a true British accent is refreshing.

The movie focuses on an international cartel of financiers, politicians and men of power who try to control the world for power, domination and money.  Mathieu Amalric, of “Kings and Queen” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” fame is absolutely convicing as the unpredictable, frenzied frontman for this cartel.  The movie is also spot-on with its plot theme that the rush to oil will become a relic of the past and will be superceded by a rush for increasingly scarce sources of clean, drinkable water.

Tough guy Craig has his tender moments as well, when a close colleague is killed.  And the script cleverly cuts away for the minutes when Bond interrogates and presumably tortures a couple of his targets to extract information.  We don’t want our vision of this hero sullied by such details.

The movie is compact, tightly-paced, visually stunning, filled with exotic locales and peppered with amazing acting with spot-on casting across the Board. 

Enthusiastically recommended!