High Stakes

Rating: 9/10 (26 November 2006)

It's been a tough task to sell successively new 007s over the last four decades; so job one is getting a new Bond to fit into an existing tuxedo of fast Aston Martins, faster women, martinis, exotic settings and danger around every corner - and do it in a way the audience will accept.
I think Craig solves the problem by -not- fitting into the stereotype at all: he's buff, angular and his large hands are in proportion to his body in the manner of Michelangelo's David - a slayer of giants. He isn't lithe or refined; more SAS than double-0. And this self-reference is used as an occasion to wink at us, what with the all the anti-clichés that pop up throughout: Craig clashing with the role(not caring about martini bartending methodology), Bond clashing with the world of Intelligence(getting caught on camera and looking bad).
Indeed, the one very clever cinematic self-reference throughout this that struck me was the awareness of 'surveillance cameras', or more precisely, how 007 is berated into growing such an awareness...
We see that chances were taken at every level; within the film, the 'promotion' of Bond to double-0, and outside the film, the 'promotion' of a relative unknown to fill the shoes of an icon. The 'Casino' is all about the mechanics of the hottest game of chance right now (Hold 'em). So everything's at stake at once: Bond reading 'tells' from the villain as it relates to the villain's motives in the movie world, the facade of the poker game appearing to be what matters, Bond's ability to read the girl's 'tells', and Craig as the instrument that is used to play with our ability to read the real 'game', that is, the noir game that the movie plays with us. Neatly done.
Oh, and visually, it's a knockout. Not just action, but -cinematic-action. Note the "Citizen Kane" flavor of the intro. The opening title sequence looks very much like the work of the UK's Shynola. The fuel tanker fight quotes "Raiders..." The first chase scene on the cranes betters "Goldeneye" by a wide margin, in fact, this may redefine how we judge chase scenes, period.
One other interesting bit is the change in tone...this is the first Bond feature to be produced after 9/11 (though not the first released after 9/11), so no more 'laser beams', at least for a while...note how the target of terror is an airplane. The terror financiers have Secret Service and Central Intelligence all over them, so they've adjusted. Reality has gotten tougher in the last five years; so has Bond. They're off to a good start by taking a 'meat and potatoes' approach.