You are sincerely of the opinion, that by taking the whole wallet, the scene would have been more realistic? And this is because of your understanding of how criminals and law enforcement works?
So killing of two (2)! motorcycle cops and a former (?) intelligence officer would be dismissed as a robbery in NY if a wallet is missing?
I know you are kidding, right?
Believe it or not, there are crime scenes that are tampered with before the police arrive that add on additional crimes. This was incredibly rampant in both the overworked 9th and Midtown South Precincts during the 1980's more than anywhere. You did have crooks finding bodies and seeing if there was any money on them. Any police force's response time is minutes, not seconds. Obviously, you know that. But I know you are kidding, right? :v
It should come automatically to him; like a Pavlovian response. By the way, by leaving Mathis's credit cards, he threatens Mathis's exposure as an intelligence officer...which could, at least eventually, be tracked back to him. And that's assuming Bond's fingerprints aren't on file in Italy (which they would have to be if he ever performed any operation inside Italy with their consent)...
The odd thing is no one seems sure whether Mathis really was a traitor or not, or was that on the mi6-hq website. And Mathis was a codename? Dunno, search me.
They get reported to the investigative division of any credit card company upon the owner's unnatural death. Because of the name discrepancy, it's up to the card company's investigative division to find out Mathis's real name (or anyone's, for that matter), which then in turn would become a criminal matter once the card company figured out he'd falsified his name. Even if they're unsuccessful, they bring in the police. And even if Mathis was using his real name on the credit cards, then they can still bring the police in to assist because it was an unnatural death.
Beginning to see the problems that not taking the wallet is causing?
They get reported to the investigative division of any credit card company upon the owner's unnatural death. Because of the name discrepancy, it's up to the card company's investigative division to find out Mathis's real name (or anyone's, for that matter), which then in turn would become a criminal matter once the card company figured out he'd falsified his name. Even if they're unsuccessful, they bring in the police. And even if Mathis was using his real name on the credit cards, then they can still bring the police in to assist because it was an unnatural death.
Beginning to see the problems that not taking the wallet is causing?
Umm, not really, because in this age, all thinks are knowable from a number of venues. So they use finger prints or dental records or DNA or cell phone records or bank records or emails or online purchase history or traffic cams or simple human investigations... once dead you can be investigated to...er, death. )
All Bond did was leave them a starting place they would have had in hours anyway.
You act like without those cards, they would have not been able to do anything.
because in this age, all thinks are knowable from a number of venues.
Nope, not really. Thank you CSI, Law and Order, and other various and sundry crime programs for perpetuating that myth, though. If Mathis turns out to be a John Doe, nothing about him is knowable by definition.
All Bond did was leave them a starting place they would have had in hours anyway.
No they wouldn't, especially if "Mathis" was merely a code name.
You act like without those cards, they would have not been able to do anything.
I'd say take the whole wallet. They'd have been able to do certain things, but it would have taken them weeks if not months and given Bond a huge head start. The key here is that "Mathis" is a code name. If you have his credit cards (or any other forms of identification on him, since they would be counterfeit), you can track his actual identity down far faster due to discrepancies in the fake ID's, card applications, etc.
It should come automatically to him; like a Pavlovian response. By the way, by leaving Mathis's credit cards, he threatens Mathis's exposure as an intelligence officer...which could, at least eventually, be tracked back to him. And that's assuming Bond's fingerprints aren't on file in Italy (which they would have to be if he ever performed any operation inside Italy with their consent)...
But they already knew that Mathis is an intelligence officer and that he was last seen in the Greene Planet party with Bond. They also knew that the cops that were killed were following Bond and that Mathis was in the trunk of that car. Bond knew that they knew "Now what are the odds that Greene also has friends in the police?". So the logical iterpretation of that scene is that Bond needed the cash.
Now getting a bit more serious in this matter: I don't think that the way Bond dumps any bodies in any of the movies is as relevant as that Bond has a very, and I mean VERY, troubled past with the police. Through out the series he's making trouble with the cops, starting with the FRWL when he intends to kill two cops, only to be restrained physically by Kerim Bey. Then it's the cops in YOLT after that it's the Las Vegas Sheriffs department that gets the grief. Do I even need to remind you how Bond abused JWP in two movies!!! Poor fellow! All the way to the climatic murder of two lowly Bolivian motorcycle cops!
Now that, if something, is a "homage" to previous installments in the series!
"I mean, she almost kills bond...with her ass."
-Mr Arlington Beech
Bond knew that they knew "Now what are the odds that Greene also has friends in the police?". So the logical iterpretation of that scene is that Bond needed the cash.
Yeah, but now he's fighting two potential enemies (the honest Carabinieri as well as Greene's flunkies) instead of one. How does that help him, exactly? Quantum knowing anything about Mathis is irrelevant. This about Bond making a potential third enemy that he shouldn't have to make.
I'd say take the whole wallet. They'd have been able to do certain things, but it would have taken them weeks if not months and given Bond a huge head start. The key here is that "Mathis" is a code name. If you have his credit cards (or any other forms of identification on him, since they would be counterfeit), you can track his actual identity down far faster due to discrepancies in the fake ID's, card applications, etc.
What??? You think it would take less than weeks to track down his REAL identity through cards issued to an alias? You seriously think an agent of Mathis' calibre is dumb enough to not engineer a dead end for that contingency anyway?
Go ahead Bond, leave the bloody cards; you'll be back in England before it means anything at all, old man. )
What??? You think it would take less than weeks to track down his REAL identity through cards issued to an alias?
The odds are he'd have screwed up somewhere along the lines. Why do you suppose so many foreign agents ARE caught (or at least detected and then monitored and eventually arrested), anyway? They're human and they make mistakes. Look at Robert Hanssen. The evidence that ultimately turned the FBI's suspicion onto him (because once they knew Aldrich Ames was a double agent, they knew he had to have help) as being a double agent was that he repeatedly re-used an obscure George S. Patton quote. If he hadn't repeatedly used it, he'd have likely never been caught.
You seriously think an agent of Mathis' calibre is dumb enough to not engineer a dead end for that contingency anyway?
Kim Philby, for all his brilliance, had no actual contingency plans for being caught and had to completely improvise. Why not?
The point is that Bond was forging ahead, and would likely be gone before anything in that wallet had any real impact RIGHT THERE.
Chrisisall, you're never gonna win me over and I'm never going to win you over on this one. It's called "inability to suspend disbelief due to real life circumstances", which sorta comes with the territory when you really rank a Bond film very, very low on your list (and for me, the only saving grace of QoS was Craig's performance outside this scene). I'll bow out.
The odds are he'd have screwed up somewhere along the lines. Why do you suppose so many foreign agents ARE caught (or at least detected and then monitored and eventually arrested), anyway? They're human and they make mistakes. Look at Robert Hanssen. The evidence that ultimately turned the FBI's suspicion onto him (because once they knew Aldrich Ames was a double agent, they knew he had to have help) as being a double agent was that he repeatedly re-used an obscure George S. Patton quote. If he hadn't repeatedly used it, he'd have likely never been caught.
Kim Philby, for all his brilliance, had no actual contingency plans for being caught and had to completely improvise. Why not?
Neither of these cases are comparable to Mathis because Mathis was obviously an intelligence officer known to at least to the chief of police as such, where as both Philby and Hanssen were illegals.
Also as the "Spies in the suburbia" case highlights, you really don't need an alias or fake identity, even if you are an illegal operating in a foreign country.
"I mean, she almost kills bond...with her ass."
-Mr Arlington Beech
Mathis was obviously an intelligence officer known to at least to the chief of police as such
I know I said I'd bow out, but it explicity says this in the film...where?
Also as the "Spies in the suburbia" case highlights, you really don't need an alias or fake identity, even if you are an illegal operating in a foreign country.
The odd thing is no one seems sure whether Mathis really was a traitor or not, or was that on the mi6-hq website. And Mathis was a codename? Dunno, search me.
The odd thing is no one seems sure whether Mathis really was a traitor or not, or was that on the mi6-hq website. And Mathis was a codename? Dunno, search me.
I'm still equally confused about this.
To go slightly OT, I've always wondered if they wanted this to be purposely left up to the audience. With the writers' strike, perhaps something else regarding backstory was planned for Mathis but they had to improvise?
To go slightly OT, I've always wondered if they wanted this to be purposely left up to the audience. With the writers' strike, perhaps something else regarding backstory was planned for Mathis but they had to improvise?
Possibly, but I love the whole freakin' movie regardless. Triumph under difficult circumstances. -{
Mathis was obviously an intelligence officer known to at least to the chief of police as such
I know I said I'd bow out, but it explicity says this in the film...where?
I know that too, but I'm pretty happy you didn't.
Ok it is an assumption, just as it is an assumption that the Bolivian police has in its disposal assets that make cracking MI6 crafted false identities a matter of hours. Because, if it were a matter of days, it would not matter whether Bond leaves the c-cards behind or not.
Only thing that the Bolivians get from the cards, and what else is in the wallet (I make another assumption here: I'll assume that "Mathis" is not dumb enough to have documents in his real name in his wallet), is confirmation whether "Mathis" is a real name or just a nickname.
"I mean, she almost kills bond...with her ass."
-Mr Arlington Beech
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,845MI6 Agent
OT also.
I've never understood why Bond says Mathis wasn't a very good codename - I assume that he means that he was uncovered? In the books, of course, Mathis was the real name of the (later) head of the Deuxieme Bureau in France.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I know that, too, but I'm pretty happy you didn't[...]
Seeing as we're really just guessing and beating a dead horse even deader now, I'm totally out. Except regarding the interesting OT point SILHOUETTE MAN brings up...
I've never understood why Bond says Mathis wasn't a very good codename - I assume that he means that he was uncovered?
This has always been my assumption as well. Here's a question for you: would you like to see it cleared up in Bond 24, or do you think that ship has figuratively sailed?
In the books, of course, Mathis was the real name of the (later) head of the Deuxieme Bureau in France.
Sort of a shame they picked Mathis to kill off. In a way, he literally saved the literary franchise, too, at the end of From Russia with Love.
The problem with analyzing scenes in the films and trying to get at what true meaning the director was going for can be like boxing at shadows sometimes. Most of the time we can get
it right from our POV, but it still could be off from the director's true idea - especially when dealing with films that move at such a fast pace like this one. Scenes in fast paced films only are given enough time to get a broad idea across of what's going on but not meant for the audience to think about too long because the director (just as writers) want to keep the plot moving on as quick as possible. Personally, I think that's one of the reasons I didn't like this film as much, because when your dealing with more personal, dark issues as they are in this plot, fast pacing then confuses the audience and just doesn't fit. It's fine for lighter fair like the Moore films or just stunt scenes, but when dealing with human drama it's important to slow down the pace and give it more weight. This was done well with Skyfall.
As far as this particular scene with Mathis, I was also disgruntled that they killed him off.
I didn't necessarily need to have seen him in a future film, I just thought it wasn't really necessary to the plot. As far as Bond's emotion, I found it a bit cold at first as well, then after seeing it a few more times I figured he put his body in the dumpster because as nasty as that was it was still better than just leaving it lying in the street. His "He wouldn't care" line I attributed to the idea that he would know more about how Mathis would have felt about this than the audience or she would. Perhaps Mathis had a cynical, fatalistic viewpoint on life from his yeas of spying and would have cared less what happened to his remains after he was gone. Bond probably feels the same way. As far as the business with the wallet, all the credit cards would have probably have been counterfeit cards that would not have given the authorities his real identity (for he may have had several identities), so Bond took the cash to at least deny the people who had killed Mathis from having it (though I thought they screwed up a bit with this, because why wouldn't the Quantum thugs just keep his wallet after they were done with him?). As far as the lingering last shot of his body, I thought that was done just to show the audience how dangerous and fragile and cheap life can be in Bond's line of work.
Actually I have a few issues with this bit, and its not your typical ones.
1. The death was a bad takeoff on the death of Fiona Volpe, as QoS is full of bad takeoffs of famous bond moments. Bond turns him to take a fatal bullet and then dumps the body.
2. The music was not right for if they intended to show bond as a heartless bastard.
3. It made no sense that he just took the cash, it would made a ton of sense if he took the entire wallet, not only for the cash, but for the IDs and so on that he might be able to use, but more importantly, delay the Identification of the Gringo in the dumpster.
(bad Takeoffs on bond moments include Moonraker (Jumping out of a plane and catching someone with a parachute), Goldfinger (Woman dead on bed covered in oil (instead of the golden girl of goldfinger), and slapping a guy off the roof at the Opera house is a homage to The Spy who loved me. Surprised Bond didn't kick someone car off a cliff. )
Edit: Someone also pointed out that Green at the end using the Ax was a homage to AVTAK
I agree with those who feel it is in-character for Bond. That is perfectly cold from a guy we are supposed to be watching turn perfectly cold after his too-hot harsh lesson in Casino Royale. He is learning what it takes to be the agent that gets his results and doesn't get taken down because of emotion. If that means making a body just a body, Bond can move right along.
This thread is about a very specific scene in Daniel Craig's second James Bond film Quantum of Solace. It relates to James Bond's treatment of Rene Mathis in the film in the scene where Mathis is shot dead by the Bolivian policemen. Please read the excerpt from an article I wrote on 'Cubby' Broccoli in 2009, where I deal with this very controversial scene in BOLD TEXT:
"Broccoli, Saltzman and the scriptwriters incorporated the more unpalatable elements of the Bond character in the first film Dr No, in the scene where Bond shoots Professor Dent once in the front and then once in the back with his silenced gun (“That’s a Smith and Wesson, and you’ve had your six”, says Bond[17]). Professor Dent had already emptied the chamber of his own gun into Bond’s mocked up bed, and director Terence Young’s “preferred version had the unfortunate Professor being shot a further four times”[18] beyond the two shots fired by Bond in the finished film. Bond’s first screen kill was “cut down from the original at the behest of the censor.”[19] Although neither this scene nor the minor villain character of Professor Dent appeared in the original Fleming novel, of which the film is otherwise a faithful adaptation, it shows that from the very start the Bond producers were willing to follow Fleming’s advice of not always showing Bond in a heroic or particularly popular light. James Bond was first and foremost a government-sanctioned assassin with a licence to kill the enemies of the state in the line of duty, but he was conversely also a hero. Another clear example of this juxtaposition between the heroic, likeable Bond and the unappealing, cold and ruthless killer may be found in the most recent James Bond film, Quantum of Solace (2008), a post-Cubby Broccoli production, where Bond’s ally and friend René Mathis is shot and fatally wounded by enemy police officers. After a very poignant scene where Mathis’ life ebbs away in the arms of Bond, Bond takes his friend’s lifeless body and roughly places it onto a dumpster at the side of the road. Camille, his female ally, asks, “Is this the way you treat your friends?”, to which Bond replies that Mathis was “not the sort to care”.[20] As Bond and Camille walk to their Land Rover and drive away, the director’s camera lens stays purposefully on the shot of Mathis spread-eagled atop the skip. The purpose of this approach appears to be to point out to the viewer, “What sort of a man is James Bond to do such a thing with his friend?” The silent lingering of the scene is one of the most powerful statements (and indictments) that the film makes of James Bond as a character, yet none of this should come as a surprise to the reader of Fleming’s novels, as Bond does sometimes do inexplicable, and seemingly uncaring and inhuman things in them. However, from a practical point of view, the viewer might also consider that Bond is too practical an agent in the field to allow the death of an ally and friend to alter his determination to see the job in hand through and it was perhaps neither the time nor the place to be distracted by a corpse or to be overly sentimental. Robert Harling, a friend and wartime colleague of Fleming revealed the possible source for Bond’s sometimes cold and unfeeling character in a television interview in 2002. Harling referred to how Muriel Wright, a wartime girlfriend of Fleming’s had been killed in an air raid and its subsequent effect on Fleming:
“I said to Dunstan [Curtis, of Fleming’s wartime 30 Assault Unit] that Fleming had gone off to identify her. I said he was so cut up. Dunstan said, ‘Well, you know that’s one of the troubles with Fleming. You have to get yourself killed before his emotions are involved.”[21]
In these examples from the Bond films, it is clear that the spirit of Fleming still lives on in the film series that Cubby Broccoli more than any other helped to initiate and sustain, even after the departure of his partner Harry Saltzman following The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). Broccoli recounted in his autobiography how Fleming continued his detailed description of the headquarters of the British Secret Service, and his recommendation that it be located “on the entire upper floor of a modern block of offices with shops below”:[22]
Now that you've read this excerpt, I'd really love to hear your views on the Mathis scene ansd what it tells us about Daniel Craig's interpreation of James Bond. Does it send out a good message etc.?
I've always meant to start a thread on this and I'd really love to hear your views on this very controversial scene from QoS., which can be viewed on You Tube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5INLbmW-HVo
I am not sure how this is any different from Moore-Bond's treatment of the killed 00 agent in Russia in the PTS of VTAK when he removes the microchip from the locket .
"And if I told you that I'm from the Ministry of Defence?" James Bond - The Property of a Lady
Comments
Believe it or not, there are crime scenes that are tampered with before the police arrive that add on additional crimes. This was incredibly rampant in both the overworked 9th and Midtown South Precincts during the 1980's more than anywhere. You did have crooks finding bodies and seeing if there was any money on them. Any police force's response time is minutes, not seconds. Obviously, you know that. But I know you are kidding, right? :v
It should come automatically to him; like a Pavlovian response. By the way, by leaving Mathis's credit cards, he threatens Mathis's exposure as an intelligence officer...which could, at least eventually, be tracked back to him. And that's assuming Bond's fingerprints aren't on file in Italy (which they would have to be if he ever performed any operation inside Italy with their consent)...
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Roger Moore 1927-2017
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
They get reported to the investigative division of any credit card company upon the owner's unnatural death. Because of the name discrepancy, it's up to the card company's investigative division to find out Mathis's real name (or anyone's, for that matter), which then in turn would become a criminal matter once the card company figured out he'd falsified his name. Even if they're unsuccessful, they bring in the police. And even if Mathis was using his real name on the credit cards, then they can still bring the police in to assist because it was an unnatural death.
Beginning to see the problems that not taking the wallet is causing?
All Bond did was leave them a starting place they would have had in hours anyway.
You act like without those cards, they would have not been able to do anything.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Nope, not really. Thank you CSI, Law and Order, and other various and sundry crime programs for perpetuating that myth, though. If Mathis turns out to be a John Doe, nothing about him is knowable by definition.
No they wouldn't, especially if "Mathis" was merely a code name.
I'd say take the whole wallet. They'd have been able to do certain things, but it would have taken them weeks if not months and given Bond a huge head start. The key here is that "Mathis" is a code name. If you have his credit cards (or any other forms of identification on him, since they would be counterfeit), you can track his actual identity down far faster due to discrepancies in the fake ID's, card applications, etc.
But they already knew that Mathis is an intelligence officer and that he was last seen in the Greene Planet party with Bond. They also knew that the cops that were killed were following Bond and that Mathis was in the trunk of that car. Bond knew that they knew "Now what are the odds that Greene also has friends in the police?". So the logical iterpretation of that scene is that Bond needed the cash.
Now getting a bit more serious in this matter: I don't think that the way Bond dumps any bodies in any of the movies is as relevant as that Bond has a very, and I mean VERY, troubled past with the police. Through out the series he's making trouble with the cops, starting with the FRWL when he intends to kill two cops, only to be restrained physically by Kerim Bey. Then it's the cops in YOLT after that it's the Las Vegas Sheriffs department that gets the grief. Do I even need to remind you how Bond abused JWP in two movies!!! Poor fellow! All the way to the climatic murder of two lowly Bolivian motorcycle cops!
Now that, if something, is a "homage" to previous installments in the series!
-Mr Arlington Beech
Yeah, but now he's fighting two potential enemies (the honest Carabinieri as well as Greene's flunkies) instead of one. How does that help him, exactly? Quantum knowing anything about Mathis is irrelevant. This about Bond making a potential third enemy that he shouldn't have to make.
Go ahead Bond, leave the bloody cards; you'll be back in England before it means anything at all, old man.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
The odds are he'd have screwed up somewhere along the lines. Why do you suppose so many foreign agents ARE caught (or at least detected and then monitored and eventually arrested), anyway? They're human and they make mistakes. Look at Robert Hanssen. The evidence that ultimately turned the FBI's suspicion onto him (because once they knew Aldrich Ames was a double agent, they knew he had to have help) as being a double agent was that he repeatedly re-used an obscure George S. Patton quote. If he hadn't repeatedly used it, he'd have likely never been caught.
Kim Philby, for all his brilliance, had no actual contingency plans for being caught and had to completely improvise. Why not?
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Chrisisall, you're never gonna win me over and I'm never going to win you over on this one. It's called "inability to suspend disbelief due to real life circumstances", which sorta comes with the territory when you really rank a Bond film very, very low on your list (and for me, the only saving grace of QoS was Craig's performance outside this scene). I'll bow out.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Neither of these cases are comparable to Mathis because Mathis was obviously an intelligence officer known to at least to the chief of police as such, where as both Philby and Hanssen were illegals.
Also as the "Spies in the suburbia" case highlights, you really don't need an alias or fake identity, even if you are an illegal operating in a foreign country.
-Mr Arlington Beech
I know I said I'd bow out, but it explicity says this in the film...where?
Which actually serves to prove my point...
I'm still equally confused about this.
To go slightly OT, I've always wondered if they wanted this to be purposely left up to the audience. With the writers' strike, perhaps something else regarding backstory was planned for Mathis but they had to improvise?
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
I know that too, but I'm pretty happy you didn't.
Ok it is an assumption, just as it is an assumption that the Bolivian police has in its disposal assets that make cracking MI6 crafted false identities a matter of hours. Because, if it were a matter of days, it would not matter whether Bond leaves the c-cards behind or not.
Only thing that the Bolivians get from the cards, and what else is in the wallet (I make another assumption here: I'll assume that "Mathis" is not dumb enough to have documents in his real name in his wallet), is confirmation whether "Mathis" is a real name or just a nickname.
-Mr Arlington Beech
I've never understood why Bond says Mathis wasn't a very good codename - I assume that he means that he was uncovered? In the books, of course, Mathis was the real name of the (later) head of the Deuxieme Bureau in France.
Seeing as we're really just guessing and beating a dead horse even deader now, I'm totally out. Except regarding the interesting OT point SILHOUETTE MAN brings up...
This has always been my assumption as well. Here's a question for you: would you like to see it cleared up in Bond 24, or do you think that ship has figuratively sailed?
Sort of a shame they picked Mathis to kill off. In a way, he literally saved the literary franchise, too, at the end of From Russia with Love.
it right from our POV, but it still could be off from the director's true idea - especially when dealing with films that move at such a fast pace like this one. Scenes in fast paced films only are given enough time to get a broad idea across of what's going on but not meant for the audience to think about too long because the director (just as writers) want to keep the plot moving on as quick as possible. Personally, I think that's one of the reasons I didn't like this film as much, because when your dealing with more personal, dark issues as they are in this plot, fast pacing then confuses the audience and just doesn't fit. It's fine for lighter fair like the Moore films or just stunt scenes, but when dealing with human drama it's important to slow down the pace and give it more weight. This was done well with Skyfall.
As far as this particular scene with Mathis, I was also disgruntled that they killed him off.
I didn't necessarily need to have seen him in a future film, I just thought it wasn't really necessary to the plot. As far as Bond's emotion, I found it a bit cold at first as well, then after seeing it a few more times I figured he put his body in the dumpster because as nasty as that was it was still better than just leaving it lying in the street. His "He wouldn't care" line I attributed to the idea that he would know more about how Mathis would have felt about this than the audience or she would. Perhaps Mathis had a cynical, fatalistic viewpoint on life from his yeas of spying and would have cared less what happened to his remains after he was gone. Bond probably feels the same way. As far as the business with the wallet, all the credit cards would have probably have been counterfeit cards that would not have given the authorities his real identity (for he may have had several identities), so Bond took the cash to at least deny the people who had killed Mathis from having it (though I thought they screwed up a bit with this, because why wouldn't the Quantum thugs just keep his wallet after they were done with him?). As far as the lingering last shot of his body, I thought that was done just to show the audience how dangerous and fragile and cheap life can be in Bond's line of work.
1. The death was a bad takeoff on the death of Fiona Volpe, as QoS is full of bad takeoffs of famous bond moments. Bond turns him to take a fatal bullet and then dumps the body.
2. The music was not right for if they intended to show bond as a heartless bastard.
3. It made no sense that he just took the cash, it would made a ton of sense if he took the entire wallet, not only for the cash, but for the IDs and so on that he might be able to use, but more importantly, delay the Identification of the Gringo in the dumpster.
(bad Takeoffs on bond moments include Moonraker (Jumping out of a plane and catching someone with a parachute), Goldfinger (Woman dead on bed covered in oil (instead of the golden girl of goldfinger), and slapping a guy off the roof at the Opera house is a homage to The Spy who loved me. Surprised Bond didn't kick someone car off a cliff. )
Edit: Someone also pointed out that Green at the end using the Ax was a homage to AVTAK
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
I'm getting there as well. So far I've felt that it's a passable Bond flick, but it's all getting ruined here.
-Mr Arlington Beech
I am not sure how this is any different from Moore-Bond's treatment of the killed 00 agent in Russia in the PTS of VTAK when he removes the microchip from the locket .