The mixed reviews for "Quantum of Solace" are understandable, because violence is divisive. And what we get in QOS is real, genuine violence. Quick, shocking, confusing, off-putting. It happens so fast, often without any warning, and comes frm unexpected directions. You can't make out what's happened until someone is lying on the ground in a pool of blood, or there's only one car left moving, or a foot chase is over because you can't chase a corpse. In previous Bond films, the violence is staged to be great fun. The bit everyone picked up on in "GoldenEye" was Pierce Brosnan calmly adjusting his tie as he rips up St Peter's Square in a Russian tank. That Bond can be a superscillious snob, with a smirk and not a hair out of place as he smashes through walls and demolishes beautiful architecture was seen by many to be the perfect idiom for the character. In QOS, Bond dumps the body of one of his only allies in a skip because "he wouldn't care". Cartoon fun has been replaced by dead men in rubbish bins.
A fight will only shock you if you don't get into fights. If you're violent, then violence is a place you will be comfortable in. To everybody else, it's a place we want to leave. We are shaken by it. After a fight, we ae left with questions. What happened? Was it really necessary? Can it be avoided next time?
Bond has taken the fight to us. He's comfortable there. He knows the speed of it, and the cost of it.
That's why the gunbarrel is at the end. That's why the last image of QOS is of James Bond stepped in blood.
Edited by Mr Ashdown, 01 November 2008 - 04:17 PM.
