It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
A classic Bond movie with all the elements. Including a scene that has left us all scratching our heads...the gangster briefing scene.
What is your theory on why Goldfinger flies in the hoods from across America. He briefs them on Operation Grand Slam and asks that they delay their payments. He then kills them all, doing society a solid and likely pissing off the crime families in the process.
Why does he take this step, other than the film needed him to so that he could explain his plot. Course he could have explained things to Bond on the veranda of his home. Yet he creates a model of Fort Knox and flies in some notorious figures from across America.
Have at it,
Why did Goldfinger host the gangster briefing in GF?
- He wanted to test the gas
- He wanted to show off in front of a lot of people
- He's mad
I guess those pretty much work, but it is a little unsatisfying maybe. Especially when you have Mr Solo being killed in an entirely separate and quite expensive way, when you could have just had him sit in the corner and get gassed with the rest of them if you're planning to kill everyone. The only explanation is really 3), which is a bit rubbish really. But hey, it's fun. Just don't let me see anyone complaining that the plot of Skyfall doesn't make sense! :)But in the film, maybe, he wanted to show how grand he could be that he had this connections to the mobsters and do a big time show off, as @mtm said, he's mad, he's a megalomaniac, he wanted to do things in big ways.
Yes the scene makes more sense in the book,but of course the film makes the fundermental change of communist Chinese goons making the raid on Fort knox rather than goldfingers need to control the various American gang outfits hence problem for the film.
Lets move on to QOS and a few problematic scenes within the movie that while not tied together I think require some theories.
To me Bond loses his humanity a bit in QOS, maybe because of the events of CR? Or maybe something else is at play. Two scenes in the movie are always ones that I struggle to make sense of and I think both show a side of Bond rarely seen in the series. Now I understand that CR was a reboot so the Craig Bond isn't the same person as the Connery/Lazenby/Moore/Dalton/Brosnan Bond.
First, Bond makes contact with Camille. He is seen observing her and seems keen to "save her" or at the very least use her to learn more about Greene. They end up in a boat chase in the harbour together and when it's over Camille is knocked out. Bond gathers her up and dumps her off at the yacht club to a officer at the club. I always am left to wonder why? Seems cold and rather un-gentlemanly that he would do this.
Later in the film, Bond reconnects with his friend Mathis. They bury the hatchet and Bond seems to be quite enjoying Mathis and his contacts and views of the world. When Mathis is beaten to death and gasping for his breath. Bond seems to be moved but when Mathis dies, he scoops him up and deposits him in a dumpster. Not before rummaging and taking the money from him. Again I am left to wonder why would Bond do this.
What is your theory for the coldness of Bond to those on his side in QOS?
Can it all be chalked up to his armour being back up from the events of CR? Or is there another explanation for his rather cold handling of allies or friends in QOS?
This was not just in QoS, Bond showed coldness many times, even to those he cared about, except probably M, because she's the one who had stood by him, she's his boss, but the rest, he didn't trust, we can make the same case for Severine in SF, Bond at first was also keen on helping and protecting her, but didn't showed any human emotions when she's shot by Silva, or by Bond taking advantage of her being a sex slave in the shower.
I think by SP, he was already matured enough to understand situations better, in NTTD, after the Matera scenes, Bond was supposed to be back in that emotionally stoic person again, if not for him recovering and having free time in his retirement in Jamaica, that at least, given him a chance to unwind, for 5 years.
Stealing the money from the wallet was a bit odd. There would be no point in making the death look like a burglary as the police had already discarded that idea, and it probably wasn't much cash to make too much of a difference.
Dumping Camille was weird though, I can't really think of an explanation for that.
Camille I guess is a bit odder as you'd think she'd be a potential lead.
Camille after the boat chase.
Mathis. It's correct Bond and Mathis are friends in the final scene. The dialog with Bond isn't to be taken literally and there's something going on there between the two. Respect and wanting the best for each other, and in the final moments Mathis being pretty selfless to talk about Vesper.
- In some of the darkest humour, Bond asks Mathis in his dying moments if he used a cover name.
- Mathis confirms he did not. Returning to familiar territory, he used his own name.
- 007 verbally pokes his friend, a longtime agent at the end of his career, for being so careless. It was literally the death of him, advertising his return to some bad players in South America.
Bond placing Mathis on a trash heap.Other than that it’s great. I actually think there’s a lot of pathos in there in Bond’s response.
As for Camille, I suppose ultimately he rescued her. I guess he didn’t think she’d be worth following as a lead or didn’t want to involve her further? Maybe a slightly ill judged gag but not out of character I suppose.
Yeah I never liked that gag, it feels like we've missed something. Another instance of the direction of QoS just being a bit off.
Bond is extremely single minded for most of QoS - he wants revenge for Vesper's betrayal. He doesnt care for Slate, Camille, the guy he throws off the top of the Tosca building, even Mathis. Its all collateral damage to him.
Two things start to alter his perspective on this - his conversation with Camille in the water cave, and later, his conversation with M and Fields death. "I think you're so blinded with rage that you dont care who you hurt. When you can't tell your friends from your enemies, its time to go".
It's part of his character development for the film - and this ultimately resovles itself when he 1) Saves Green and gets information rather than let him fall to his death in the hotel, 2) saving Camille and giving her something of a future to drive towards, and 3) not killing Yusef at the end.
No, I’m not sure that’s quite right. For most of the film there’s no one for Bond to actually get draw any tangible sort of revenge towards (there’s a presumption Yussuef’s alive, but how would Bond have known he was a honey trap until the end when Green presumably told him?) He may still be going through it with Vesper’s death and want some sort of answer (which I guess has spurred him to return to MI6 and continue to follow up on Quantum) but the point is he’s not actually blinded by ‘inconsolable rage’. The deaths of the Tosca bodyguard - who he gets blamed for shooting incidentally - and Slate aren’t committed by him out of internalised rage but self defence and/or a part of his job (and of course he only learns later the bodyguard is British intelligence/the extent of Quantum’s infiltration). He certainly seems sorry that Mathis and Fields die even if it’s out of his hands. The ‘inconsolable rage’ line is M trying to justify to herself that she’s doing the right thing by arresting him towards the end. If anything Bond’s the one who sees the pitfalls of the British siding with Green, and M even agrees and goes back on all this a scene later when she claims she trusts Bond.
It’s only at the end, in the midst of all the death and Camille’s emptiness towards avenging her parents, that revenge factors into this fully for Bond. Ultimately Bond concludes the dead don’t care about vengeance and he has his answers. He at least stops the cycle by saving the Canadian agent from a similar fate to Vesper, but ultimately Yussief just turns out to be some middle man. There’d be no worth killing him.
It’s partially a case of odd writing (if they’d really wanted to play with Bond’s job being impacted by revenge they could have brought this out better, although I think it’s for the best they didn’t. It’s a bit contrived that he doesn’t try to say to M immediately that he didn’t actually shoot the Tosca guy either). Ultimately it’s not revenge story, even if that’s a theme in there.
Regarding Yussef, I understand once they found out his death was a charade, that he most likely was in on it. Why would they let him alive, unless he was of some use to Quantum?
I think I'd disagree with that: I tend to think the point about M's 'so blinded with rage' speech is that she's actually wrong: Bond isn't on a rampage to get revenge, he's literally just doing his job all the way through. We see with our own eyes that he didn't kill that Special Branch guy in the way M interprets it, he kills Slate out self-defence, and of course at the end of the film Bond underlines it by pointing out 'I never left'. He never goes rogue (well, there's a period of less than a minute where he beats up all the MI6 guys in the lift- technically he's rogue there until he meets M in the hallway and she gives him her blessing) - the point is that everyone thinks he's out for mindless revenge but he's actually just being 007, whilst still dealing with his own personal feelings about Vesper's death. 'The dead don't care'.
edit: Sorry just saw 007HallY's post where he says pretty much the same thing. I tend to agree!
Sorry I'm late to this, but one thing about killing off all those who helped Goldfinger in planning Grand Slam, if their leaders go missing, wouldn't these connected people be ready for some payback if the plan had succeeded and even with all his extra wealth, could Goldfinger really have felt safe or looking over his shoulder the rest of his life?
Definitely the trust issues. How do you trust a woman who tried to kill you on first meeting or not think maybe Mathis would be in the mood for payback to Bond? Mitchell's betrayal also didn't help things. He's dealing with a lot, so it's no surprise.
Again, it might just be an underbaked script, but I don't see any hint one way or the other that he's in on it. Bond even says he's unimportant, which would be very odd if he knew to what extent Yussief was in on this entire scheme (one can imagine he'd be a great person to interrogate about Quantum). It's a question which actually hangs over the entire film, or at least this was the sense I got when I first watched it. Did Yussief manage to escape and is now in hiding? If so does, he have any answers for Bond about what this organisation is? Or, indeed, is he actually the main villain of this story and are we in for that sort of twist? Turns out the latter is the case to some extent, although he's a sort middle man honey trap agent. But this is only confirmed by the very end.
Again, I actually quite like that they didn't give Bond that specific figure to take vengeance on. As it is, there's a lot going on in the film. Honestly, I think a bigger character arc is with M. By the beginning she doesn't trust Bond to do his job impartially, and Bond in turn doesn't really trust her. Obviously by the end that changes completely.
Notice of course that he doesn't kill White out of revenge, but -as in the rest of the film- does his job.
Because deep down, M’s instinct is that Bond is the right man for the job, and her doubts only get in the way of her judgment….
I guess…. that and because the script told her that’s what she should do.
I don't know, for me it was pretty obvious the first time I watched the film, from the moment they brought it up. I need to rewatch QOS, maybe I had known a spoiler then, but I always understood Yussuf was a honey trap.