Die Another Day

"Die Another Day" is the twentieth film to feature tuxedo-wearing, woman-seducing, martini-shaking British secret agent James Bond. But rather than taking the milestone as an occasion to let him glide easily to another stylish, violent triumph, screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and director Lee Tamahori make him work for it. In the film's opening moments, rather than referring to his devilishly euphemistic "license to kill," a flunky for a corrupt North Korean general simply and flatly calls Bond "a British assassin." The North Korean general, apprised of this, icily informs Bond that he studied at Oxford and Yale, where he "majored in Western hypocrisy."

The bleak, bomb-scarred landscape provides no rest for Bond, who lashes out by causing many things to explode entertainingly but whose final quip sounds inappropriate in this suffocating devastation, even, it seems, to him. Then he's tortured for fourteen months, which provides hallucinatory imagistic fodder for what is normally an abstractly seductive opening credit sequence. Welcome to the new Bond.

Our hero undergoes further, even more dispiriting humiliations later, but you get the idea: "Die Another Day" ain't no cocktail party, even when it is. And the bleakness of the opening moments, recalled at suitable moments throughout the film, acts as a kind of emotional tether for the blithe nonsense we've come to associate with Bond, nonsense which Tamahori is then able to embrace himself after his own fashion: nothing strays too far from the idea that Bond himself has been wronged, and he's got to overcome long odds to right it. And that's how it should be.

It's actually almost more impressive to watch Pierce Brosnan bear up under the wrong done to him. Brosnan appeared nearly inert at times in his first three Bond films, dispiritingly so. Now, however, it seems that inertness was actually an attempt to communicate an ironic detachment, necessary for Bond's survival in dark hours, that those first three flismy films weren't actually demanding of his character. Here Bond's impassivity is a positive trait, his ability to make a quip in even the direst of circumstances somehow heroic, his impossible solution to the improbable dilemma amazing for the calm that carried him to it. Whether dropping lame but hilarious sexual double entendres or driving a tank, this Bond knows what to do because he knows better than to overreact: the essence of secret-agent suavity.

Even Brosnan's Bond, however, can't help but do a double-take upon espying Halle Berry's Jinx emerging from the Caribbean in an (ahem) dramatic bikini. Berry seems convinced she's acting in some movie that takes her lines seriously, especially in the sexual double entendres, and her banter loses a little fun from the miscalculation. However, most people who are attracted to women will be inclined to forgive her all her thespianic sins; Berry really is that hot, and if she wants us to pay extra attention to her, then extra attention shall be paid. (Madonna looks even more irrelevant in her cameo when she's taking valuable screen time away from Berry. Stop trying to act, woman.)

Bond films have recently been blessed with outstanding villains, and Toby Stephens and Rick Yune make a fine pair of potential world dominators; Stephens, in particular, espouses his hatred of the West and the "disgusting" James Bond with chilling ferocity. But neither would have the impact they do without Tamahori and cinematographer David Tattersall creating their battlegrounds and lairs. Tamahori's invention is such that he can make both a Cuban DNA-modification facility and a Reykjavik ice palace, among other stunning environments, creepy and beautiful at once, with a drained, almost sere palette and a feel for the jarring detail. He paces the action well, not allowing us to linger on irrelevancies, and when he gets time to create a tableau he makes it worthwhile: the planet-endangering weapon here is as impressive as any you've ever seen, and Bond's escape, conducted at an improbably stately pace, nevertheless takes one's breath away.

Tamahori and screenwriters Purvis and Wade have also sprinkled allusions to classic Bondage throughout the film: Berry emerges from the ocean, watched through binoculars, just as Ursula Andress did in "Dr. No," gadgets from various classics still litter Q's laboratory, and one hair-raising scene one-ups "Goldfinger"'s famous Freudian scare. These both provide moments of fun for Bond cinephiles and reinforce the main narrative: Bond, cast out, must earn back what once was his and prove that he shall die another day.

Unfortunately, most directors capable of something that subtle can't direct action, and Tamahori, sad to say, is no exception. The final fifteen minutes of the movie or so run off the rails precisely because Tamahori can't contend with the large-scale destruction he's got to make overwhelming and the fast-paced fighting he's got to make both comprehensible and visually interesting; his efforts are pedestrian at best and incoherent at worst. But that disappointing ending can't erase entirely what came before, which is the best Brosnan Bond by far and a damn engaging show, old chum. Let's renew his license to kill for another twenty films or so.

SOMETHING I DON'T UNDERSTAND

Every single time, that dude tries to take a picture of Bond and then Bond turns and shoot him. Why doesn't he figure out that he's going to get shot if he takes a picture of Bond? Even if the photographer dies each time and it's twenty different guys, someone with two brain cells to rub together should be able to figure out the circumstances connecting the untimely gunshot death of the previous nineteen photographers.

Here's my parody of it in my Walter Lamm movie:

Start out with Bond shutter thing. Walther Lamm walks onto the screen, shutter trails, Walther squares away, but instead of shooting he rolls a grenade at the camera. The perspective changes and we see a cameraman lying on the ground coughing. Walther stands over him with a gas mask.

Walther: Paparazzo! Bah!

The paparazzo pulls a knife. Walther punches him out in the face, real quick.

Walther: (as in "The Negotiatior") You want my blood? (paparazzo nods "yes") You can go to the blood bank like everyone else.

Actually, let's roll the rest of that scene, since it's Thanksgiving. Be warned, however, that it dates from 1998:

Cut to the building with Les Halles and the NFL branch office in it, on Pennsylvania Avenue. Establishing exterior shot, then show some stressed black guy talking on a cell and Walther walking up to him.

Walther: What up, Murray?

Murray: I wish you would stop trying to be "down," Walther. We've got a hostage situation on the 13th floor. It's the NFL headquarters. They say they've got the building wired to explode if their demands aren't met. We found this on the ground.

It's a manila envelope with photos of where they put the C4 in the building.

Walther: Ya, this checks out. I especially like the statues. (one photo shows "David" scuplted in C4) Nice detailing on the abdomen.

Murray: Yeah, it really translates well to the medium. Hold on, my Caller ID says the terrorists are calling.

We now see the terrorists. They are extremely fat and white, and sweaty, and everything concomitant. They are talking on the cell. The head guy is a Tim Allen-soundalike (why? We shall see).

Tim Allen: Attention government law enforcement: We are in control here. We have guards at all the entrances. No one gets in or out of this building without me knowing about it. The building is wired to explode with more power than the Oklahoma City bombing. More power, aarh, aarh! And we will not give up this control that we have achieved until (we now see that he is reading off sheets of paper, one of which he seems to have misplaced), um, until, until someone forces the NFL to give the Detroit Lions a decent quarterback.

Murray: Look, let me speak to one of the hostages.

Tim Allen holds the phone in front of an NFL guy.

NFL guy: We're still alive, but you have got to force Green Bay or San Francisco to comply with them! Even the Giants! It's our lives here! This guy's serious!

Tim Allen: OK, are you satisfied? OK. You have one hour. (click)

Walther: Has the building been evacuated?

Murray: Everyone's out except for the NFL people.

Walther: What's in this building?

Murray: A law firm, well actually a bunch of law firms, and a TGI Fridays, and that restaurant over there, serves enormous steaks.

Walther: Enormous steaks? (narrows eyes, zoom in) I'm going in.

Murray: I don't know what's wrong with the quarterback the Lions have.

Walther: You're not a football fan, are you, Murray?

Walther runs off.

Murray: Walther––wait! Walther, you can't go in there! Walther! Wait for backup!

Walther: The Lions never did.

Walther rips his vest off, and reveals a Barry Sanders jersey with a massive ammo belt over the number. Strides off towards building with massive guitar chords sounding in background.

Yup, that humor about Detroit sports teams never grows old, except when we draft Joey "The Greatest NFL Quarterback Who Also Plays Jazz Piano" Harrington. The preceding, of course, isn't getting used if I ever finish this thing.

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