"Mathis Needs Me"
superado
Regent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,652MI6 Agent
Apologies if this has been discussed but I couldn't find anything; while celebrating a bit after winning the big pot, what clued in Bond that Vesper was in danger when she left the dining room? Some say that Bond suspected Mathis to have tipped Bond off about Le Chiffre's "tell" while bluffing, but Bond didn't seem to have nursed any suspicions about Mathis before then. Also, shouldn't he have suspected Vesper as one of two potential leaks?
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Comments
Even Vesper's death does not seem so inevitable as to justify her commiting suicide in the film. The novel itself presented a more convincing case.
The plot was so mismanaged that the writers had to enlist M at the very end, to quickly explain everything to us. ("Oh by the way 007, Vesper had a boyfriend. He was kidnapped by Le Chiffre's organization, and she was blackmailed. Why weren't you killed the night you were tortured? Vesper must have made a deal to spare your life in exchange for the money. Duh!") Horrible plot execution on the part of the screenwriters. Utterly dire!
[Enter crazed, angry, CR worshippers] {:)
-Roger Moore
I've read some explantions that made sense in another forum, but I can't remember them (something to do with Mathis should be off arresting Le Chiffre? Doesn't seem convincing enough. Or Mathis and Vesper had no business working together, but that doesn't really hold water either) and frankly this bit has baffled me every time I watch it. It's quite annoying- seems like something has been cut somewhere.
A bit like the bit where he calls the phone on the body in that guy's boot - presumably the car and owner are part of le Chiffre's gang, but he hasn't been set up well enough for us to know him. The car is pretty distinctive too- feels like we should recognise it.
I believe Bond becomes suspicious because Mathis fails to make a personal appearance at the resturaunt. Vesper's "Mathis needs me." statement reminds him that Mathis has not shown up since the end of the game and provokes his subconsious suspicion tha "someone" disclosed Bond's discovery of LeChiffre's "tell". Bond may also have an instinct that something is "wrong".
Vesper's death is inevitable because that is the way old Ian Fleming wrote the origial novel. While Vesper's actions are more overt in the film (she becomes an active participant in the bad guys scheme) her motivations are the same as in the novel - trying to save her trapped lover, and later trying to escape her bad situation by using Bond.
The conversation with Bond after the game "Just because you've been doing something, doesn't mean you have to continue..." is about Vesper, trying to figure a way out of her dilemma.
She is less a traitor in the film than in the book, where the Russian's have been holding her Polish lover for years, and Vesper has been handing over British secrets the entire time, secrets from Head of "S", the section that deals directly with the Soviets.
Her actions in the film are meant to protray a smart, accomplished professional, suddenly tossed into international espionage, who is then blackmailed into betraying her goverment - all in the space of a few days.
Since Vesper is essentially a civilian, she has trouble coping with the situation, and makes wrong choices. She comes to appreciate Bond's strength, courage and seeming indestuctability, and he becomes her saviour! But reality catches up and for Vesper, death becomes the only viable alternative.
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Arf! That's a good point!
Maybe they wanted Vesper as she was the one with the account number and possibly also the password, she could then be used as bait for Bond at a later date. It would be risky to lift her under Bonds nose with a clue so he chased them right away. Placing her in the road was very risky as they could have killed both Bond and Vesper and never gotten the money, although this could be a last ditch attempt as Bond chasing them could have ended all hope of freedom and the money anyway.
The fact that Bond thought it was strange that Mathis would text Vesper and not himself is not so difficult to get round. Afterall Mathis was Bonds contact, not Vespers. After that, things just clicked into place. You do get the feeling that somewhere along the way an important scene was cut.
I don't think they intended for him to chase after them like that. They were probably going to either get the bank info from her or ransom her for the information from Bond, but when he took off after them, they dumped her in the road to get him to crash.
A better question is, wheat happened the CIA? They were suppsoed to pick LeChiffre up!
Problem is that we see Mathis and Vesper together quite a bit at the poker games, so it doesn't seem unlikely that the two were in contact. Vesper certainly doesn't seem surprised at him contacting her- unless she's supposed to be lying about who sent her the message...?
I've explained Bond's brainstorm about Mathis in the dining before, so I won't do it again. But why doesn't Bond also suspect Vesper? I'll leave that explanation to Percy Sledge:
"When A Man Loves a Woman
Can't keep his mind on nothing else
He'll trade the world
For the good thing he's found
If she's bad he can't see it
She can do no wrong
Turn his back on his best friend
If he put her down."
'Nuff said.
What stands out to me the most:
-Mathis is the Montenegro contact (potential for earlier dealings with criminal network).
-Mathis is primarily Bond's contact, not Vesper's.
-They wanted to hold Vesper hostage but didn't actually want Bond to chase them.
On HH's comment, M certainly missed something when she warned Bond to keep his ego out of it and overlooked the honey trap aspect of Vesper's role until the end, which is a common text-book intelligence hazzard. Then again, that was the point of the theme in exploring Bond's development as the experienced double 0 he would soon become.
That's very true. CR's Bond is much more fallible than we've seen him before, which follows the spirit of the novel specifically and Fleming's Bond generally. I hope it's a trait that will continue, although I wouldn't expect him to be fooled in quite the same way twice.
Yup, that's why Bond will not even give a second thought of grief after Aki dies in his arms!
Aki? I bow to you superior Bond knowledge. I don't who that is.
I think you certainly can be too cryptic, but one of the things I really liked about the CR script is that it didn't spend a lot of time explaining what was, for a Bond film, a complicated plot(M's briefing Bond on the boyfriend angle aside)and let the audience piece together the outlines of it from the action. It's unusual for an escapist action film, and I think that's what throws off some people. Bond is an intelligence agent and I don't think his world should be as unmistakenly clear as it has been in past films. He doesn't know everything and neither does the audience. One thing I really hate is when the audience is smarter than the characters. I just watched a finely directed and acted film with interesting characters called Fracture. But it fell apart as the thriller it was supposed to be because I knew the "secret" 10 minutes into the plot and couldn't figure out why the main characters -- a supposedly brilliant lawyer and engineering genius -- couldn't figure it out. One of the CR's strengths is that even if you know the story from the novel, there is still a sense of mystery and suprise at the end: who exactly is Mr. White? What was his relationship to LeChiffre? Who was the guy in Venice and how does he fit in? etc ... I expect much of that will be answered by Bond 22, but I wouldn't mind if that film raised questions of its own. I think we're so used to Bond films ending with the traditional 007 defeating the madman set piece and bedding the leading lady that CR was a major mind-blower. If you liked the film, it seemed deeper than it really was, and if you hated it, incomprehensible as a Bond film.
Wait, wait... so did Orlov destroy the *replica* Faberge egg or the *original*?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
She's the girl in YOLT who dies whilst sleeping with Bond when an assassin drops poison (meant for 007) down a string. Bond promptly wakes up and shoots the bad guy, then turns to Aki in her dying moments just as Tiger bursts in. I've always read that scene characterwise as 007 shooting first and grieving later, albeit briefly.
With the possible exception of the movie of Goldfinger; in which he's absolutely rubbish!
I don't know if Bond's arrogance can completely be discounted; the screenwriters made sure to have Bond concede that he'd been arrogant when he was trying to get the backup cash from Vesper. I thought this was the moment when he was brought down a peg or two.
I think Mathis' full role is yet to be revealed. When he and Vesper are on the beach, Bond blames him for revealing the 'tell,' but one has to consider the possibility that it was Vesper, and not Mathis...I think Mathis was a double (or triple?) agent, pretending to have gone over to Le Chiffre (assuming that Le Chiffre wasn't simply lying to Bond after the crash, in order to keep suspicion off Vesper).
I think this is why Mathis is coming back in #22. I foresee Mathis and Bond reuniting as allies...and a mea culpa, however muted, from Bond for having doubted him.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
But it was never made clear exactly if Vesper and Le Chiffre were in league with each other.
If she was, why did he dump her in the road when he needed her to get the money?
If she wasn't, and was actually trying to steal money for Mr White (not Le Chiffre), then she should have jumped at the chance to give Bond the back-up funds, since she too 'lost' the money she was hoping would go into the 'wrong' account.
This was an angle that was not in the novel. Bond's losing was his own fault. period. It should have remained that way IMO
I really like that about CR. Perhaps we'll find out more in #22, perhaps not. If not, the ambiguity will continue to nag at Bond...and CR detractors {[]
A fair point, and IMRO the biggest plot hole in the film. Basically, I think, it was to secure that great crash sequence B-) The moment when Vesper looms in the Aston's headlights---and Bond reacts---is a classic moment in the franchise, as far as I'm concerned...to say nothing of the subsequent seven violent, metal-twisting rollovers...
Again, I think these questions carry over into the next film. If Vesper truly feared for the live of her French-Algerian boyfriend, the conflict within her would have been profound. Either way, I think the ambiguity works within the framework of the plot, and serves the underlying moral of this early-'00' status Bond story: knowing who to trust (nobody!) is one of the most difficult aspects of the job.
I think it was Bond's fault, if for no other reason than by putting too much faith in his own reading of Le Chiffre's 'tell,' he exposed himself to in-game tactical manipulation. Whether or not this information was conveyed to Le Chiffre, Bond's overreliance on it is a byproduct of his cocksure hubris.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
CR is a darn good film, and a great Bond film. I've always accepted the "Mathis needs me" section as something that makes sense within the story, it's just not fully explained to the viewer. Because I believe that that internal logic is in place, I just go with it--and Bond. Really, Craig makes all that work IMO. For me anyway.
I also expect some further info in Bond 22, but like as not everything will not be explained.
Either it works for you or it don't. Much like Craig (or insert whatever Bond actor's name here) in the role. Thrillers are inherently NOT concerned with tying up all those loose ends nicely, sometimes they achieve this but usually there's a dangle or three. IMHO the bigger deal is Craig in the role and the overall film they made, and not the picked nits. But I will agree that Bond getting all concerned about Mathis after Vesper leaves is a from-left-field moment, as the filmmakers presented it. Which always struck me as very Fleming (Bond has epiphanies like almond trees have nuts), and they chose a nice way to present it, ie unexplained. I really like that whole sequence, it zips along, questions come up and are left hanging there, we're kinda put in Bond's frame of mind: things happening, not all the answers, in danger, etc. Very effective filmmaking IMO, even the mystery unexplained bits.
Hmmm, just watched that myself. Judging from the title, the symbolism of those complicated yet perfectly crafted perpetual motion machines, and the alternate endings, there's only one way the film could irrevocably end...yet the detective's planted evidence will certainly, eventually determine the opposite outcome. Plot hole? No. More like, plot buster.
I took that as an attempt to adapt the villain's trick from TMWTGG the novel, in order to make the Vesper kidnapping/Bond crash from that novel more visually interesting. If this was truy the case, then it's an example of how the creative process did not carefully consider the plot holes it may inadvertently cause.
It's little things like this that have always irritated me when watching movies - for me it signals that the writers are more interested in 'cool ideas' than the characters they write about. In this case, Le Chiffre's motives are to steal Vesper (great impetus for a chase!) then LC dumps Vesper on the road (fantastic visual!) -- at this point, the character's motivation plays second fiddle to fancy concepts, which to me is poor writing. A similiar thing occurred in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Jones and Elsie flee the burning, underground catacombs of Venice, they escape their gun-wielding pursuers, but then stop in the midst of peril to interrogate the baddies...At some point the characters' motivation to flee from danger turned into a quest for information. When motivation like that changes at the flick of a switch with no clear relevance to the viewer, the writers risk losing connectivity with the audience.
That's always been my assumption, at least.
Probably the case...but still, it's putting a fair amount of trust in Bond's driving skill; if he doesn't turn in time, Vesper is hamburger in the Aston's grille---and JFF goes home from the cinema much happier
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM