Shaken and Stirred

Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Judi Dench, Mathieu Amalric, Jemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo

Gianninni

Rating:

Running at: Inox Forum, City Centre, Swabhumi; Fame South City, Hiland Park Now, Obama wouldn8217;t start speaking Bush8217;s language overnight if he dyed his hair blonde, but James Bond is made of stuff no man can ever stake claim to. So, when he crashes into all sorts of glass facades and walks out straight with the smuggest expression ever, we believe him. And that has never been difficult. When he lets go a sizzling hot woman with a brief peck on her lips, we believe him too. Maybe somewhere in the back of our minds, we knew that the blonde mop would definitely do something to the relentless machine of chauvinism that we knew our super sleuth for. And Daniel Craig, with his unapologetic gaze and the twitch of his face muscles that speaks in the contrary, made Bond his own. Bond could now fall in love, could be in love with the same woman for two films in a row, could take the last words of a dying friend to heart. And we still believed him, because Craig took Bond a little ahead the guns and the crisp white bedclothes his predecessors romped with.

Having said that, Quantum of Solace, gives our Bond-next-door, very little to work on. You are told that countries are taken over, billion-dollar deals struck, men, women killed mercilessly 8212; in a fight over water. And Bond here has to deal with a villain, who looks like he could be punched into jelly by you in a very violent mood. The Bond girl, looks her part, and is out of take revenge on the man who destroyed her family when she was a kid. And that8217;s all you can say about her. You experience no extraordinary adrenaline rush, because Bond here doesn8217;t do stuff unimaginable for a text book action hero. The car chase that starts off Quantum of Solace is spectacular in parts. Yes, Italy does look beautiful and Bond even better as he runs around rooftops, and hunts down baddies, but beautiful has never been an operative adjective for a character know to be reckless, ruthless and larger than life.

Craig is stunning. When he broods over Vesper Lynd8217;s picture. When he charms the wits off a Bolivia-based MI6 agent, told to pack him off to England. When he tosses the phone away with not even a smirk after a sharp chastisement from M. When he hangs from ropes in an old Italian building in a mid-air fist-fight with M8217;s traitor bodyguard. But somehow, Marc Foster, makes Quantum of Solace pointlessly good-looking. He fails to justify why Bond has to get battered over a stream of water, we8217;re told is hidden under a barren Bolivian desert. He seems satisfied by the magnificence of the idea that is James Bond, and therefore, leaves the latter8217;s conviction and motivations in the film thoroughly half baked. And if you hold on to your seats, expecting the final plunge into things, that look mortally impossible otherwise, you8217;ll be disappointed. Yes, Bond is dry, and silently vindictive as he tosses a can of oil at his beleaguered enemy in a desert before the last frame, but saving a girl from a burning building is something Bond could have done as a rookie. At least, over the years, we have been made to believe so.

Bond, for years, has feasted on our dismissal of disbelief. Daniel Craig, with a little help from Judi Dench, looks all poised to take charge. Quantum of Solace just doesn8217;t give him a story to live out for us.