Too Violent for its PG-13 rating

Rating: 2/10 (31 December 2006)

This film was way too violent for its rating. I will be the first to admit that I am on the record as saying that I am not as worried about violence as I am out sex and bad language in movies. But there is something different about the violence in this Bond film. When I was sitting at the theater, I could not put my finger on it, but I when I got home and started to related the way the violence had made me feel, I understood. The violence in Casino Royale is cruel. It is not so called action violence, or at least not all of it. It is cruel violence. It is violence done at least in part because the characters in the film enjoy hurting people.
Case in point, Bond endures an extended on screen torture scene in which he is strapped naked to a chair. (He's seen from the side.) Le Chiffre then swings a heavy rope to repeatedly hit Bond in the testicles.
The torture scene mentioned above has no business in a PG-13 rated film. It is exactly what I mean when I say that the violence in this movie is cruel. Plus, what Le Chiffre says to Bond is so sick, so sick, so sick that I cannot repeat it without feeling dirty. As a father of seven children, I would advise parents to never allow their children to see this movie. Mom and dad, if you let little Johnny see this film, you could scar him for life.