BOND AND THE BADDIES

Daniel Craig as James Bond 007
(If he looks waxy it is because it is
a model from Madame Tussauds)

According to a recent report, people do not go to the cinema unless there is a fair bit of killing in the film.  We do not fight large scale wars anymore so we watch our killing on screen instead.

A case in point is the latest James Bond film No Time To Die, which we went to the other day.  It is, of course, Daniel Craig's last outing as Bond.  (Inevitable if you watch to the end, but I will not say why and give away the ending.)  Craig offs more bad guys than previous Bonds and is officially the most violent incarnation of the man with a licence to kill, a nonsensical idea which is nevertheless a fundamental part of his identity as shown by that fictional 00 prefix.

Computer programmes tell people who put their money into films that, in order to recoup their investment, lots of people have to be killed on screen.  With interest payments alone at a million pounds a month because of its delayed release, it is hardly surprising that the Bond film ends up being one where an army of anonymous baddies line up to be killed by the hero, usually in a variety of ways, often with him making a pun or quip as he does so.  None of the gunmen think that a concerted rush at the lone saviour of humanity might work but come out one or two at a time, giving him the opportunity to kill them.  And none of them can shoot straight either.

At the same time, war films are increasingly realistic in showing us what it is actually like to kill someone - bloody, messy and long-winded.  I caught a little of Hacksaw Ridge a war film directed by Mel Gibson (who has done his fair share of killing on screen) and it showed just how dangerous and bloody it was to fight in a real war with actual weapons.

Relax, I hear you say, it is only a movie, a few hours entertainment that should not be taken too seriously.  Well, yes, but I often wonder how the chief baddie (who also cannot shoot straight) gets hold of his army of men who are prepared to die for him and the pay-packet he presumably offers them in the end.  There is a section in one of the Austin Powers films, which are spoofs on Bond, in which the families of Powers' victims mourn their loss while he makes terrible puns about how he killed them.  It is the most interesting part of a not always effective satire.

It all started off quite innocently with Craig-Bond learning to kill at the beginning of Casino Royale.  He becomes quite expert and enthusiastic at it by the latest film which follows the formula that, in order to make the world a better place - or simply to save it - you have to kill a bunch of people.  It is a tempting proposition but a huge oversimplification.  People act from all sorts of motives, sometimes in the belied they are doing something worthwhile, sometimes just to pay their bills and make a living.  That these sometimes come with a death penalty attached if they end up on the wrong side of the moral fence is not usually factored into their calculations.

All o this comes at a time when Alec Baldwin is in deep trouble for actually killing someone and wounding someone else on the set of a western he was making.  There is no suggestion that he knew it was loaded with live rounds rather than blank ones but he pulled the trigger in a pretend killing that turned into a real one with a real victim.  Why were a real gun and bullets used rather than fake ones?  Time and an investigation will presumably tell but a pretend killing turning into an actual one shows how reality and fantasy sometimes get mixed up - with fatal results.

Films often have in their credits a note saying that no animals were harmed in its production but that will ring a little hollow if it is appended to Rust, the film Baldwin was making, when two real human beings were injured, one fatally, when he was working on it.  People are bound to ask awkward questions when and if the film is eventually released and will expect answers.

Asking awkward questions is one of the freedoms we fight for when we try to protect freedom and it is one that assorted villains are only too eager to suppress when it comes to gaining world domination, an idea that keeps popping up in James Bond films.  Well, it is not too much of a spoiler to say that he saves the world from domination by the forces of evil in the latest movie. He also has a five year old-daughter who appears in the film.  Bond, however, is about taking life not creating it.  Where, I wonder, do they put the bodies of all the people he kills in his work?

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com 

Edwin Lerner