I watched this movie recently and, like often happens when I watch Bond films, I had no idea what was going on. Apparently, for some reason that escapes me, Bond had to win at poker to catch a bad guy. Pretty much the entire movie hinged on this premise. Could someone explain what that strategy was all about and why it made sense?
I believe that the plan was to bankrupt Le Chifre (sp?) so that MI6 could offer to bail him out (witness protection) in return for the details of Le Chifre’s terrorist connections. Le Chifre was playing in the tournament with money he was laundering for various terrorists.
The weepy-eyed Frenchman was getting money from terrorists and promising them a really good rate of return. He sold short on the airline coming out with the new plane, counting on their stock to go down after his agent blew up their plane and set them back.
Bond foiled that, so our weepy-eyed villan had to play poker to get enough money to cover all the terrorist money that he lost. MI6 and the CIA wanted to beat him so that he would be broke and agree to work with them in exchange for protection from all the terrorists that were going to take it out of his hide.
D’oh! I forgot about the whole plane thing!
Please Explain Casino Royale to Me
I can’t, because I stopped the DVD in disgust after about 10 minutes. 
Ten minutes? What’d you do, switch it off halfway through the theme song?
If you want confusion, try the Peter Sellers/David Niven 1967 Casino Royale
Given that there’s always a pre-credit sequence, he probably didn’t even make it that far.
OK, OK, jeez, you guys! How about ten minutes of the actual movie. If it can be dignified by calling it a movie.
Poker? I read the book, and saw the original - in those two it was baccarat. So now we have Bond playing Texas Hold 'Em?
Texas Hold ‘Em is the hot card game of the moment, a poker variant that most folks can at least grasp with a few minutes’ watching. Baccarat is a niche game that no one in the audience would understand. You might as well complain about Bond using computers and cell phones.
Yeah, I’d call it a movie, a damn good one too. Not just a great Bond movie, but an excellent MOVIE movie.
Are you not into action-adventure, or are you not into Bond as anything other than a cartoon character?
Also, from what I’ve read, baccarat requires almost no skill at all, which cuts down on the dramatic possibilities of a scene revolving around that particular game.
I’ve been a fan of the James Bond movies since I was a kid, and I gotta say I was disappointed. The movie was billed a present day prequel, where we see a rougher edged Bond, before he has learned all the subtleties of the job. All we saw him learn was how to say his name and how to order a martini. And lots and lots of card playing. And how come ‘Q’ didn’t have some hi-tech way to guarantee Bond would win? X-ray contacts or something?
Well, I’m not trying to be a smartass, but not counting the opening teaser and the theme song (which really did seem to go on for ten minutes), then ten minutes into the body of the film that long, long chase scene would still be going on. Myself, I found that scene tremendously exciting, and a ballsy way to open the movie, but yeah, if you’re anxious to get to the story, there isn’t much by that point. It really does develop a plot eventually…
That’s exactly the sort of thing they were trying to get away from, and rightfully so, IMHO.
Remember when Bond movies used to set trends instead of following them?
They substituted a modern game of bluffing and skill for antiquated game of (mostly) chance played today only by elderly dowagers and colonels. They made the right choice. For all the tension baccarat would have raised, they might as well have had them playing keno.
Since the original poster did not understand the plot of the movie, I’d say that, in itself, would be a hindrance to enjoying it. I enjoyed it.
Granted, it’s been ages since I read the books, but I thought that this Bond was much truer (within Hollywood limits) to Flemming’s creation. That is, while it’s all well and good to compare it to other Bond films, to do so without recognizing that there are some oranges in your apple cart is to overlook a bit of nuance. YMMV.