Casino Royale (2006)

The James Bond franchise is restarted with a new James Bond on his first mission as a double-0 agent, in a story adapted from Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel.




The Plot: (Spoilers)

In Prague, Czech Republic, an MI6 Section Chief (Malcolm Sinclair), suspected of selling state secrets, arrives at his office in the middle of the night. MI6 agent James Bond (Daniel Craig), not yet a double-0 as he has no kills and needs two, is waiting for him. The Section Chief pulls a gun from his desk to shoot Bond, but the gun is empty as Bond had already found it. Bond reveals he's already killed the section chief's contact; a flashback shows them fighting in a bathroom and Bond drowning him in a sink. The section chief starts to say that the second kill is easier, but Bond shoots him mid-sentence. "Yes. Considerably." Flashing back to the bathroom, the contact wasn't killed by the drowning and recovers to pull a gun on Bond, but Bond is quicker, shooting him first in the famous gunbarrel opening, leading to the opening credits featuring "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell. The opening credits show that Bond is promoted to 00-status.

A new variation on a famous opening

In Mbale, Uganda, a man named Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) is meeting with the leader of a group of “freedom fighters,” waiting for someone else to arrive. The leader asks how he knows he can trust the man they are waiting for with his money, and Mr. White says his organization only guarantees the introduction. The man, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), arrives and they make the deal. Le Chiffre calls his broker and shorts another million shares of Skyfleet stock, despite the broker’s warning that he’s going against the market.

Mr. White watches as Le Chiffre makes a deal

In Madagascar, Bond and another agent named Carter (Joseph Millson) are watching a bombmaker (Sébastien Foucan). The bombmaker receives a text message, and then sees Carter touching his earpiece. This tips off the bombmaker that he’s being watched and he starts running. Bond chases him on an extended footrace through a construction site and ultimately to the Nambutu Embassy, where Bond ends up killing the bombmaker, setting off a large explosion and escaping with the bombmaker’s backpack, in which he finds the cellphone and checks the text message, which reads simply “ELLIPSIS.”

On a yacht, Le Chiffre is shown the news of the incident in Madagascar. He asks how long until Ellipsis expires and is told 36 hours and he says that's all the time they have anyway.

In London, M (Judi Dench) has had to answer to Parliament for Bond's actions in Madagascar. Meanwhile, Bond has broken into M's home and uses her computer to determine where the Ellipsis text message was sent from, which was the Ocean Club on Paradise Island in Nassau in the Bahamas. M comes home to find Bond there, and she orders him to get out of sight and think about his future.

Bond goes to the Ocean Club and reviews the club’s surveillance tapes and finds that the message was sent by the driver of a silver 1964 Aston Martin DB-5. He asks the front desk about it and learns the owner is Mr. Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian), who lives up the beach. Bond gets a room at the hotel. Bond wins the car from Dimitrios in a poker game and uses it to meet his wife (Caterina Murino), who he invites back to his room, while Dimitrios meets with Le Chiffre on his yacht. Dimitrios connected Le Chiffe to the bombmaker in Madagascar, and says he has another man who can do the job. Dimitrios calls his wife and tells her he is flying to Miami; she reveals this to Bond and he follows.

A Classic

In Miami, Dimitrios is leaving a bag check tag for his contact, when he sees Bond following him and tries to kill him, but Bond kills Dimitrios instead, and follows Dimitrios's contact (Claudio Santamaria) back to the Miami airport. After losing the suspect behind a locked door, Bond calls MI6 to report that he suspects a bombing, then suddenly realizes that “Ellipsis” is the code to unlock the door. MI6 determines that the target is the new prototype for Skyfleet's new S570 airliner: the largest ever built. After a fuel truck chase on the tarmac, Bond keeps the Skyfleet prototype from being destroyed, and Le Chiffre loses $101,206,000, which he got from the Ugandan freedom fighters.

Back in the Bahamas, MI6 discovers Dimitrios's wife has been tortured and murdered and that Le Chiffre has set up a high-stakes hold-‘em poker tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro to win back the money he lost shorting the Skyfleet stock; had their prototype been destroyed the stock would’ve crashed and Le Chiffre would’ve made a lot of money. Bond is the best player MI6 has, so he is being put in the tournament in place of a crime syndicate member. If Bond wins, Le Chiffre will have nowhere to turn and will have to accept a deal for protection from MI6 in exchange for revealing his contacts.

On the way to Montenegro by train, Bond meets Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), who was sent by the Treasury to monitor Bond and the $10 million he needs to enter the tournament, and authorize an additional $5 million if she thinks it’s a good idea. The two trade barbs over dinner, with both making accurate deductions about the other.

In Montenegro, they check into the hotel, and Bond finds that M has had a new Aston-Martin DBS delivered for him, which includes emergency medical supplies including a portable defibrillator and a gun and silencer, which Bond puts it in an envelope and leaves at the casino’s front desk.

Bond checks out his new ride

Bond and Lynd meet their local contact Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), who informs him that Le Chiffre is bribing the police chief of police, but he has delivered faked evidence implicating the chief that gets the chief arrested.

Bond, Lynd and Mathis

The poker tournament gets started, and Bond meets Le Chiffre. Bond soon discovers that Le Chiffre has a tell. Mathis delivers a bug, and at the next break they hide it in Le Chiffre's inhaler. Le Chiffre goes to his hotel room, where the Ugandans are waiting for him. Bond is listening over the bug, and is concerned the Ugandans might kill Le Chiffre, so he fetches his gun from the front desk and he and Lynd wait outside Le Chiffre’s room. Le Chiffre promises the Ugandans that he'll have their money the next day, and they leave. Bond and Lynd pretend to be lovers making out in the corridor, but the Ugandan’s spot Bond’s earpiece. They fight down the stairwell and Bond kills the Ugandans. He tells Lynd to have Mathis hide the bodies.

Bond meets Le Chiffre

In the game, Bond sees Le Chiffre's tell again and Le Chiffre goes all in. Bond has a full house and calls, going all in himself, but Le Chiffre actually has 4 of a kind; his tell was fake, to trick Bond. Bond needs the $5 million buy in to stay in the game, but Vesper refuses, thinking Bond will just lose that too. Bond decides to kill Le Chiffre, but another player introduces himself as a CIA agent named Felix Lieter (Jeffrey Wright). Lieter thinks Bond has a better chance of winning than he does, so he offers to cover the $5 million for Bond if Bond agrees to let the CIA make the arrest. Bond agrees.

Bond contemplates his loss

Bond wins back a lot of money. Le Chiffre arranges to have one of Bond's drinks poisoned, inducing a heart attack. Bond manages to make to his car and its medical supplies and with help from MI6 and Lynd uses its defibrillator to restart his heart, and he returns to the game.

The game is down to four players. The other two players go all in, Le Chiffre raises, and Bond goes all in, forcing Le Chiffre to go all in to call, which he does. The other two players have a flush and a full house with 8s and aces. Le Chiffre reveals his hand: a full house with aces and 6s. He is sure he has won, until Bond reveals he has a straight flush. Bond wins the tournament and Le Chiffre leaves angrily. Bond tells Lieter he is free to take Le Chiffre.

Bond tells Lieter he can take Le Chiffre

Bond and Lynd have dinner, and a told that the CIA has made contact with Le Chiffre. Lynd receives a message that Mathis needs to see her and she leaves. Bond suddenly realizes Mathis might have been involved and chases after her, just in time to see her grabbed and put in a car. He chases in his car, only to come across her tied up in the road. Bond swerves and crashes. Le Chiffre and his men pull him from the car and Le Chiffre says "I'm afraid your friend Mathis is really my friend Mathis."

Be careful on those slippery roads

Bond is taken to a dark building and tied up. As Lynd can be heard screaming in another room, Le Chiffre tortures Bond for the password to the bank account. Suddenly, Mr. White arrives. Le Chiffre says he'll get the money, but Mr. White says that money is not as important to his organization as knowing who to trust, and kills Le Chiffre, leaving Bond and Lynd alive.

Bond and Lynd recuperate at a hospital and Bond has Mathis arrested. Mendel (Ludger Pistor) the Swiss banker arrives for the account number and password to transfer the money. Lynd enters the account number and Bond gives her the password (Vesper) and the money is transferred.

Bond and Lynd realize they've fallen in love. Bond admits to her he realized Mathis must have told Le Chiffre that he noticed the tell and that's how Le Chiffre was able to trick him. Lynd asks if everyone has a tell, and Bond says everyone does except her. They sail to Venice and Bond sends M his resignation.

Lynd and Bond get closer

The next morning, Lynd is off to the bank while Bond is to get supplies for their travels, but M calls and asks what happened to the money from the tournament. Bond calls the banker, who says that the money was transferred and is being withdrawn from the account as they speak… at the Venice branch.

Bond finds Lynd leaving the bank with a briefcase and follows her to where she hands over the briefcase to two men. They spot Bond, and take Lynd with them into a building under renovation, where they lock Lynd in an old caged elevator, while snipers shoot at Bond from above. Bond shoots some of the inflatable pontoons holding up the building as a diversion as he gets in, and the old building starts to collapse and sink. Bond fights the men and kills them all. In the process, the briefcase is dropped into the water and floats away. As Bond tries to unlock the elevator's outer gate, Lynd locks the inner gate, and the elevator falls and sinks. Underwater, Bond can't get into the elevator before Lynd drowns. He pulls her out and gets her to the roof of the sunken building, but it is too late and he can't revive her. Mr. White watches from a nearby building, and walks away carrying the briefcase.

Bond reports to M, who has learned that Lynd had a boyfriend who was kidnapped and held to force Lynd to help them get the money. M suggests that this clears Mathis, but Bond thinks it could've been a double-blind. MI6 is out of leads, but Bond finds Mr. White's number in Lynd's cellphone.

Mr. White arrives home and gets a call on his cell phone. He answers and Bond's voice tells him they need to talk. White asks who it is, and is shot in the knee. White drags himself to his porch and Bond walks up, carrying an automatic rifle and a phone. "The name's Bond. James Bond."

"The name's Bond. James Bond"

My Review:

Casino Royale reboots the James Bond franchise, keeping the best aspects like exotic locations, cool cars and beautiful women and toning down the more ridiculous ones like gadgets and villains’ gimmicks and it works! Despite a running time of 144 minutes, the film has a tight plot and is action packed, even with a poker game taking up a lot of time. The only slow part comes when Bond is recuperating with Lynd in the hospital and they fall in love. This could have used some trimming. Otherwise, the action and poker game scenes are well done, especially the opening chase through the construction site in Madagascar with Bond and the bombmaker, and the impressive car crash. The casting is very good. Daniel Craig is perhaps the best James Bond ever. Eva Green is good as Vesper Lynd, though I didn’t quite feel the romance between her and Craig’s Bond, their earlier scenes when they were antagonistic towards each other are excellent. Unlike many Bond villains of the past, the villains here are understated without much dialogue. It isn’t until the torture scene that Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre really gives the actor a chance to show his abilities, but its enough to show Mikkelsen’s talent. The other rest of the cast does a good job as well, including Judi Dench returning as M, despite this being a reboot. Dench gives M a slightly different twist here than in the Pierce Brosnan films, showing her distrust of the young and inexperienced Bond.

Overall, Casino Royale is a fun James Bond adventure that shows the origins of a new James Bond and sets a new direction for one of the greatest movie franchises.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Written and directed by Chris Paine and narrated by Martin Sheen, Who Killed the Electric Car? tells the story of the electric cars used in California in the 1990s, in particular the General Motors EV1, and what happened to them, in an attempt to determine if there was a conspiracy involved.

In the early days of the automobile, the electric car was dominant, but inexpensive gasoline and innovations like the electric started allowed the gasoline engine to take over, and electric cars disappeared. In 1990, General Motors unveiled a new concept car called the Impact. The Impact was an all-electric 2-seat coupe, powered by batteries and electric motors, with sleek, futuristic and aerodynamic styling. Impressed by the technology in the Impact, the California Air Resources Board quickly issued a mandate in 1990 that stated that a percentage of new cars sold in California would have to meet zero-emissions standards. This percentage would by 2% starting in 1998 and 10% by 2003.

The General Motors EV1

The Impact became the EV1, which was released to the public in time to comply with the mandate. The EV1 was not actually offered for sale, but was leased through Saturn dealers in California and Arizona. The General Motors EV1 was not the only electric car available; other manufacturers had to comply with the mandate as well, offering the Honda EV Plus and Ford Th!nk, which were all-new vehicles designed as electric cars, and the Toyota RAV4 EV, Ford Ranger EV, and Nissan Altra EV, which were based on existing gas-powered vehicles. The EV1 was arguably the most modern-looking out of all of them.

An EV1 with other electric vehicles at a charging station

While the automakers complied with the mandate, they also fought it. The film tells stories of how difficult it was to lease an EV1 and how the dealers had long waiting lists while GM claimed there was no demand and shut down the assembly line after 1999 (and as the film points out, one month after purchasing the Hummer SUV brand).

EV1 vs Hummer

GM and DaimlerChrysler went so far as to sue the California Air Resources Board, and the Bush Administration joined them in the lawsuit. Meanwhile, oil companies ran advertisements claiming that electric cars were actually bad for the environment due to electricity coming from coal, and the new chairman of the California Air Resources Board, Alan C. Lloyd, Ph.D., had connections to the proponents of hydrogen-powered cars. After a hearing process that the film claims limited the speaking time of the supporters of electric cars and the 1990 mandate while giving full time to the representatives of automakers, the California Air Resources Board repealed the mandate on April 24, 2003, and put its support behind the development of cars powered by hydrogen fuel-cells.

With the mandate dead, automakers no longer had to produce zero-emission vehicles. But not only did they end production, they also terminated the leases on the electric cars that were already in the hands of the public. By July 2004, the last consumer EV1 in Los Angeles had been reclaimed by GM. Initially the public didn’t know what happened to the cars, but it was eventually discovered that they were being trucked to GM’s proving grounds and crushed. Some of the former drivers wanted to keep the cars and tracked them to the lots where they were stored, staging protests and at one point offering GM over $1 million for the cars in a particular lot, to no avail. Filmmaker Chris Paine shows footage taken by helicopter of stacks of crushed EV1s at GM’s proving grounds.

Crushed EV1s

Other car companies took similar action, as TV personality Huell Howser inadvertently discovered nearly-new Honda EV Pluses to be shredded while visiting a metal recycler for his program California’s Green.

Huell Howser finds a to-be-shredded Honda EV Plus

The film concludes by listing “suspects” for the “killer” of the electric car, including consumers, batteries, oil companies, car companies, government, C.A.R.B. and the hydrogen fuel cell, and the film finds all but batteries guilty. The film tries to draw parallels between the electric car and the so-called “streetcar conspiracy” (where General Motors and oil and tire companies bought up electric streetcar lines in numerous cites so they could convert them to gas-powered buses) but there’s no real evidence of a conspiracy here, just some poor decisions and individuals and companies looking out for their own interests.

The film tries to compare the electric car to the streetcar conspiracy

In the end, while no major automakers produce all-electric cars, there are some independent companies making them, and some the technology developed for electric cars led to today’s hybrid cars.

The film has a clear pro-electric car position, and there are a few aspects that could have been given a closer look. As an example, lip service is given to the fact that the EV1 was very expensive, but this is brushed off with the idea that with higher production, economies of scale would have brought the price down. However, there are no numbers given nor any actual experts consulted on this issue (at least not in the film) so there is no way to know what level production would have had to reach for the EV1 to become affordable to the general public while still making GM a profit, if it were possible at all. General Motors may have known, or at least suspected, that the EV1 would always lose money. Perhaps GM genuinely expected the public to reject the electric car, so by building the best they could, they could come back to C.A.R.B. and say “We tried, but people just don’t want electric cars.” When the public started taking to the cars, GM may have had to try to stop the demand or else risk being forced to build cars that cost the company money. The decision to crush the existing EV1s is harder to defend, but since the EV1 was a unique product for GM, sharing few if any parts with other GM products, GM may have felt it was legally safer and less expensive in the long run to get them off the road rather than maintain a parts and service network for them.

One of the few surviving EV1s, at LA's Petersen Automotive Museum

Despite the film’s bias, there is an attempt to get interviews showing both sides of the story, though those on the opposing side generally don’t give very good arguments (perhaps due to editing), and there are far fewer of them than there are on the side of the filmmakers. The opposing side is represented by John R. Wallace of the Ford Th!nk EV Program (who gives reasonable concerns and positions), Dave Barthmuss from GM Communications and Edward H. Murphy, Ph.D. of the American Petroleum Institute (who give what sounds like propaganda) and Alan C. Lloyd, Ph.D., Chairman of the California Air Resources Board from 1999-2004 (who tries to defend his decision to end the mandate for zero-emissions cars). Meanwhile, the filmmaker’s side is represented by a wide range of personalities, including engineers who worked on GM’s Impact, GM’s former EV1 Marketing Director and other former employees in the EV1 program, former members of the California Air Resources Board, the developers of the batteries used in the EV1, Carter Administration Energy Advisor S. David Freeman, Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader, a number of drivers of electric vehicles ranging from celebrities like Mel Gibson to everyday people and more.

There are a few moments that don’t work. A “funeral” for the electric car, featuring Ed Begley, Jr. giving a eulogy, is kind-of gimmicky, and a little too much time was spent on the protests, especially seeing as how they were futile. The film also attempts to paint the Bush Administration as a party to the “conspiracy” when it joined the lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board, while it was probably just caving to the lobbyists of the auto and oil industries.

Overall, while there is no real evidence of a conspiracy, Who Killed the Electric Car? presents a story that many people wouldn’t otherwise know, and makes for a thought-provoking documentary.

MacGyver: The Gauntlet (Season 1, Episode 4)

MacGyver has to get a journalist out of a Central American country.

The Plot (spoilers):

MacGyver's been sent to steal a map of (apparently) American targets from (apparently) Arab terrorists (some Arabic, or at least Arabic-looking, writing is seen on a building; the flag shown doesn't seem to match that of any country). He ends up using the map in various ways in his escape: to retrieve a skeleton key from the other side of a locked door, as a blowgun to distract a woman so he can steal a robe from her clothesline, to conceal a metal bar he uses to knock out a soldier, as a sled to slide down a sand dune and to patch a bullethole in his hot-air balloon. The opening gambit ends at just over 7 minutes into the episode.

MacGyver is sent to an unnamed Central American country (though since they are 100 kilometers from a border with Mexico, it is most likely Guatemala or possibly Belize; no other countries besides the U.S. border Mexico) by publisher Arthur Prescott to find photographer Kate Connelly (Robin Curtis) and bring her home. MacGyver finds Kate at a local paper processing photos of Dave Ryerson (John Vernon), a man who MacGyver was responsible for being deported from the U.S. Kate is trying to bring down General Antonio Vasquez (Gregory Sierra), who runs the country's secret police and is getting weapons from Ryerson and his crime syndicate. The deal is happening that night, and Kate agrees to leave the country after MacGyver helps her get pictures of the deal. MacGyver agrees. Kate's local colleague offers MacGyver a gun, but he declines, saying he does much better without them. This is the first episode to establish MacGyver's aversion to guns.

MacGyver and Kate

MacGyver and Kate sneak into Ryerson's hacienda and get pictures of Ryerson showing Vasquez samples of his inventory, but they are spotted and captured. But the weapons include plastique, which MacGyver combines with camera equipment to create a distraction and escape. But when they try to go back to the local paper to develop the pictures, they see that Vasquez's men are already there and have killed Kate's colleague.

Vasquez and Ryerson

MacGyver and Kate take refuge in the local church while MacGyver figures out a plan to get Kate and the film out of the country. MacGyver uses candles and firecrackers to create a noisy diversion in the church's bell tower, cables the army's Jeeps together and steals a bus which he drives by an improvised periscope to avoid being shot. Now they just have to make it the 100 kilometers to the border with Mexico. They end up ditching the bus after it is spotted by a plane, but by nightfall are only about 10 miles from the border. MacGyver catches a lizard for dinner, and he and Kate have a romantic evening in the wilderness.

Sanctuary

The next day MacGyver and Kate take out a couple soldiers and steal their Jeep, but Kate breaks her lucky camera in the process. They reach the border but Ryerson and Vasquez are already there waiting for them with the army at the bottom of a hill on the banks of the river that forms the border with Mexico.

The Blockade at the Border

MacGyver and Kate double back to an old barn where MacGyver builds an arsenal of barrel bombs. They haul the barrel bombs back to the border. They send their stolen Jeep down the hill toward the army, where it luckily takes out one of the army's Jeeps. MacGyver is surprised at this stroke of luck.

Direct Hit!

Then MacGyver and Kate send down the barrel bombs, which are a distraction for the barrel that they ride in down into the river so they can swim across to Mexico.

Swim!

Safely in Mexico, Kate fixes her lucky camera MacGyver-style and they pose for a picture with the Mexican border guards.

Smile!

My Review:

This episode of MacGyver has a good premise and a good cast, including Robin Curtis (better known as Saavik from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). The middle section, with the minor romance between MacGyver and Kate, doesn't work for me, and they seem to get a long way after they abandon the bus. The ending makes it all worthwhile, though Ryerson and Vasquez weren't too bright to not send at least a few men to try and find MacGyver and Kate. They could've been caught when MacGyver was building his arsenal. This isn't one of my favorite episodes, but its a decent outing.

MacGyver: Thief of Budapest (Season 1, Episode 3)

MacGyver goes to Budapest to pick up a watch containing top-secret information.

The Plot (spoilers):

A king's valuable horse has been stolen by a tribal leader, and MacGyver's (Richard Dean Anderson) been sent to recover it. He saddles the horse and makes his getaway from the enemy camp carrying a shepherd's staff, but the tribal leader and his men give chase on horseback. They are armed with guns, but the leader says not to shoot as they could hit the horse. MacGyver finds himself surrounded on a beach. The tribal leader and MacGyver do a couple jousting runs, with MacGyver using the shepherd's staff and the leader using a sword. On the second run MacGyver knocks the leader off his horse and makes a run for it. With the bad guys in pursuit, a helicopter comes up from behind, with a lowered cable and hook. The helicopter comes over MacGyver, who grabs the cable and hooks it to the horse's saddle, and the helicopter lifts them into the sky and flies them to safety. (It appears this was done with a real horse!) The opening gambit ends at 6:40 into the episode.

Pegasus?

MacGyver is in Budapest, Hungary during the Transcarpathian Road Rally to meet colleague Nicholai Grodsky (Nicholas Kadi) who has some top-secret information to deliver to him. While he waits, MacGyver enjoys an ice cream and watches a worker reprogram a traffic light, then casually checks out some of the race cars. A young gypsy girl named Jana (Kelly McClain) picks him as a mark and bumps into him to steal his Swiss Army Knife, but MacGyver catches her. Found out, she offers MacGyver a Gypsy blessing. They part, and MacGyver realized she picked his pocket again as he left her. But there's no time to go after her as MacGyver spots Grodsky, who is checking a pocketwatch. Two Russian agents know Grodsky is a double-agent and have been watching and filming him from a van as he walked around for three hours to find out who his contact is. They also know that the watch contains the names of KGB agents in England.

MacGyver confronts Jana

MacGyver and Grodsky surreptitiously make contact. Grodsky wants to hand over the watch somewhere more private and suggests they meet back at a cafe. They separate, and Jana trips up Grodsky and pick-pockets the watch without Grodsky realizing it. Moments later, the Russian agents try to stop Grodsky, who makes a run for it and get hit by a truck and killed. The Russians search him but don't find the watch. MacGyver sees this and casually walks away.

MacGyver and Grodsky make contact

The Russians review their video of Grodsky and realize MacGyver was his contact and that Jana stole the watch. The lead Russian, Kossov (Bruce Abbott), tasks Hungarian Inspector Messic (Michael Constantine) to find MacGyver and Jana. Messick thinks he can find MacGyver but the gypsy girl Jana will be hard to track.

Inspector Messic and Kossov

MacGyver tracks down Jana, who tries to run but MacGyver catches her. She returns the Swiss Army Knife. Then he asks for the watch. She tries playing dumb but MacGyver knows better. She realizes the watch is important and agrees to get it back, as she gave it to her brother, Bruno. But before they can talk to Bruno, they see Kossov and Messic with the Hungarian police arresting Bruno and the rest of Jana's family.

MacGyver just can't catch a break

Jana's family are taken to the Borza labor camp, and MacGyver and Jana track them there. MacGyver makes a "light-bulb sandwich" from construction/demolition debris, and they use it to cause the prison supply truck to stop so MacGyver can sneak aboard and get into Borza. Inside the truck MacGyver finds uniforms for both prisoners and guards and other supplies. He initially poses as a prisoner as he mixes battery acid, salt, sugar and weed killer to make a time-delay bomb and makes contact with Jana's family, then poses as a guard and rigs a tractor to be unstoppable as it pulls a barbed-wire barrier. MacGyver steals the supply truck and uses it to get Jana's family out. It turns out that Bruno had already sold the watch before he was arrested, so the Russians still don't have it.

Jana's brother had sold the watch to a gypsy woman named Reena (Sue Kiel), who runs a bar. The patrons don't react to well to MacGyver asking about Reena, but she shows up and stops them before things get too out of hand. Upstairs, MacGyver shows Reena the information in the watch, and as they negotiate, Kossov & Messic arrive. MacGyver doesn't have any cash, so Reena gives him the watch as a gift, and he sneaks out.

Jana and her family want to come to America with MacGyver. He comes up with a plan to have them pose as rally teams and steal some of the cars from the race. Jana steals a police radio, while MacGyver slices up a credit card and uses it to reprogram a traffic light. They steal three Mini Coopers (one red, one white, one blue) from a car carrier just as Kossov and Messic show up with the police. And the chase is on...

The race is on!

MacGyver's reprogrammed traffic lights cause a traffic jam as they lead the police on a wild chase through the city (using footage from the 1969 film The Italian Job) frustrating Kossov and Messic. MacGyver has Jana duct tape a transistor radio playing music to the stolen police radio, and once they lose the police for a moment, they tie the radios to a batch of balloons from a street vendor and set them aloft, cutting off police communication.

Hiding in the MINI lot. (I love this part!)

The chase continues and they make it across the border to Austria, where Kossov and Messic can't follow them. MacGyver arranges for the family to come to America after a couple days for processing. He has to go, but he gives Jana his Swiss Army Knife, saying "You earned it" and she gives him her necklace in return.

MacGyver!!!

My Review:

Thief of Budapest is one of my favorite MacGyver episodes. It's just a fun adventure, and that fun comes from the characters and the actors who play them, plus the use of footage from the original The Italian Job. This is perhaps the most obvious of several MacGyver episodes that use footage from an earlier film as a cost-saving measure, but it doesn't hurt the episode. Even without the chase scenes, this was undoubtedly an expensive one, and they did a pretty good job fitting the footage from The Italian Job in with the new footage. The chase wouldn't have been possible if it all had to be fimed new, after all, this is only episode #3, and the chase would've had to be filmed somewhere that could pass for Hungary. There's no way that would've fit in the budget.

One minor issue with this episode is that MacGyver has no problem communicating with anyone in Hungary. I doubt that Jana's family would actually speak English, so we have to assume that Macgyver speaks Hungarian, and since this episode establishes that he's been to Budapest before, that is a reasonable assumption. It's far more reasonable here than it was one episode ago in Burma in The Golden Triangle.

All-in-all, this is a great episode of MacGyver.

MacGyver: The Golden Triangle (Season 1, Episode 2)

In the first production episode, MacGyver frees villagers in Burma from a druglord.

The Plot (spoilers):

MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) is watching a man with a briefcase in an auto salvage yard. Another car arrives and two men get out and look over a file from the briefcase. MacGyver's voiceover reveals the file contains missile launch codes stolen from the Pentagon. Mac tips a stack of tires as a distraction, and uses the electromagnet crane to snatch the briefcase (with magnetic hinges, apparently) and gun from the first man. Mac tosses the gun in a wrecked car and takes off with the briefcase, with the 3 men in pursuit (the first man recovers his gun). Mac gets punched out and wakes up tied up in the back seat of the first man's car. The 3 men are outside. A forklift picks up the car and puts in on the crusher. As the crusher comes down, Mac pulls apart the back of the seat and escapes through the trunk at the last minute, unnoticed by the men. They get in their other car to leave, but Mac intercepts them with the forklift, lifts up their car and pins it against a pole. The opening gambit ends 6 minutes into the episode.

Need a lift?

General Hawkins (Angus Duncan) drops in on MacGyver as he relaxes on the beach. He's sending him to Burma to recover a canister of dangerous toxin from a crashed cargo plane. A chopper will pick him up after 24 hours. MacGyver arrives to find villagers being used as slaves to harvest opium. One of the villagers is a boy (Bryan Price) with a red hat with an Air Force insignia on it. Mac rescues him from a guy named Truang (Benjamin Lum).

MacGyver meets Chan

The boy's name is Chan and he leads MacGyver to the plane wreck, and says that Truang works for a General Narai. (Though Chan's hat looks almost new, the wreckage of the plane appears to have been there a long time). The canister is gone. MacGyver turns to see Truang just in time to be knocked out.

The wrecked plane

MacGyver is taken to the village. Truang suspects MacGyver is a narcotics agent. A black helicopter flys over: General Narai (George Lee Cheung) has arrived: dressed almost entirely in black, with a beret and carrying a riding crop. Only half the opium harvest is complete, but they have the plane's cargo (though there seems to be lot more cargo then could have fit in the small plane at the crash site) including heavy machine guns and the canister. General Narai intends to mount the guns on his helicopter and make it a gunship. MacGyver claims to be a tourist, which entertains Narai and Truang. They don't believe him.

General Narai and Truang are amused

Narai gives the villagers five days to finish the harvest, and has MacGyver tied up in the sun until he returns with no food or water, as an example to the villagers. Narai leaves with the guns for the chopper, leaving the rest of the plane's cargo behind until he comes back with his convoy for the opium. MacGyver is tied up in the sun.

Catchin' some rays

Chan arrives with his sister Lin (Joan Chen), who cleans MacGyver's wound from when Truang hit him. Chan reveals he has stolen MacGyver's Swiss Army Knife from the guardhouse and returns it to MacGyver to he can cut himself loose. MacGyver takes out a couple of guards, then releases some of the village's pigs as a distraction to get under the tarp covering the cargo. He improvises a bomb from the cargo and causes enough other chaos and destruction that Truang runs off to get the convoy while the villagers overpower the guards. Chan's sister Lin and brother Ming (James Saito) thank him, but the headmaster (Clyde Kusatsu) says MacGyver has put them at risk of Narai's vengeance. MacGyver goes to meet his rescue chopper and delivers the canister, but stays behind to help the villagers set a series of traps for the convoy.

Chan and his family: Prasert, Lin and Ming

Truang is returning with the convoy. MacGyver warns them, giving them a chance to turn back, but they don't take it. Going forward despite MacGyver's capturing one Jeep and taking out most of the other Jeeps through a hole trap and a blown-out tires. Truang calls General Narai for backup. Truang and company arrive in the village on foot, walking right into Mac's tear-gas trap, and the villagers take care of them. Suddenly, General Narai arrives in his helicopter gunship and opens fire. Mac feeds a cable into the Jeep's winch and on one of Narai's passes he loops the other end of the cable around one of the helicopter’s skids and reels it in, forcing Narai to land. Narai gets out of the helicopter gun in hand but Mac is quick and knocks it out of his hand. Narai pulls a sword from his riding crop but trips over the helicopter's skid and impales himself with his own sword. The villagers are now free.

My Review:

I am not a fan of this particular episode. The premise is OK and the actors do fine, but the characters have no depth. And there are some other problems. In the opening gambit, MacGyver manages to get out of the car in the crusher... WITHOUT BEING SEEN! And in Burma, there should be a language barrier. I can buy that General Narai and maybe even Truang might know English, but the poor villagers? I doubt it. And I don't think MacGyver speaks Burmese, though seeing as how this is only episode #2, there hasn't been anything to say he doesn't, but the exchange with General Hawkins strongly implies that MacGyver's never been to Burma, so it doesn't seem likely that he'd have learned the language, and the original plan (retrieve a canister from a crashed plane) wouldn't have needed someone who could talk to the locals. Some of MacGyver's traps are pretty clever, though the episode doesn't spend enough time on them, and it doesn't seem like they've yet decided that MacGyver will never use a gun, as his only objection is that they don't have time for the villagers to learn to use them. On the other hand, he doesn't carry a gun himself either. And, couldn't the writers come up with better names than the generic-sounding Chan, Lin and Ming?

After the high bar set by the pilot, The Golden Triangle falls short.

MacGyver: Pilot (Season 1, Episode 1)

Richard Dean Anderson stars in the first-ever episode of MacGyver, where the title character has to rescue scientists from an underground laboratory and stop a dangerour acid leak.

Our first-ever look at MacGyver

The Plot (spoilers):

Somewhere in Central Asia, Present Day, MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) is seen climbing a steep rockface. His voiceover tells a boyhood story about riding Old Man McGinney's Golden Palomino, as the visual reveals a crashed American fighter plane on top of the mountain, surrounded by tents and foreign soldiers. Parts of MacGyver's voiceover story align with his mission, such as when recalls Old Man McGinney's dog Hector who guarded the Golden Palomino as he knocks out a solder and takes his coat and hat as a disguise. MacGyver takes a flare gun from the crashed plane and puts it in his bag. Then he notices the plane's pilot survived, and is in a hanging wood cage. MacGyver gives him his Swiss Army Knife to free himself and ask which tent has the missile. Inside the appropriate tent, MacGyver removes a panel from a large missile. Using some special tools he has in his bag, he removes a component from the missile, and the missile starts a 30 second countdown. MacGyver cuts a wire to no effect. MacGyver pulls a paper clip from his bag, unbends it and uses it to complete the circuit that was broken when he removed the component. (That's right, the first ever MacGyver-ism was using a paper clip to defuse a missile!) Back outside, MacGyver rigs an automatic rifle with tree branch, string and a lit matchbook, then goes to get the pilot. The rifle goes off, causing a distraction, and MacGyver and the pilot make their escape. Mac knocks out soldier with the butt of the soldier's own rifle, & takes rifle with him. MacGyver and the pilot reach the edge of the mountain. "God, I hate heights," says MacGyver. He uses the rifle briefly to lay down cover before handing it to the pilot. MacGyver pulls a parachute from his bag and puts it on. He pulls out the flare gun from his bag and smashes end of it with a rock to make a "rocket thruster." MacGyver grabs the pilot and fires the flare gun, throwing them off the cliff. The parachute opens and they glide to safety. The opening gambit ends almost 10 minutes into the episode.

MacGyver fires a gun!

In New Mexico, a limousine pulls into the Cendrex Corporation's Kiva Laboratory, which is disguised as a radio station in middle of nowhere. The limo's passenger is a British scientist, Dr. Sidney Marlowe (Olaf Pooley), who is visiting his colleague, Dr. Carl Stubens (Paul Stewart). Dr. Marlowe is met by Dr. Stubens' assistant, Dr. Barbara Spencer (Darlanne Fluegel), who says Dr. Stubens is waiting on the Third Level and takes Marlowe to him. Marlow and Stubens play a game of chess. Meanwhile there's a bomb counting down. Stubens makes a move and tells Marlow he's sorry. He looks at the clock and just as it his 11:00, the bomb goes off. Explosions go off throughout the Kiva Lab.

The Kiva Lab

MacGyver lives in the Griffith Observatory and has a "little brother" (an underprivileged child he hangs out with) named Reggie (Shavar Ross). A helicopter arrives, bringing MacGyver's state department contact: Ed Gantner (Michael Lerner). He explains the situation at the Kiva Lab. Stubens and Marlowe are important Nobel-nominated scientists. They are alive, but the odds of rescuing them are "not great." MacGyver asks Gantner to define "not great" on a scale of one to ten, and is told "minus three." MacGyver agrees.

MacGyver hears the mission

MacGyver and Gantner arrive at the Kiva Lab and meet with the director of the lab, Dr. Charlie Burke (Michael C. Gwynne). MacGyver asks if the explosion could have been caused by Dr. Stubens's research, but Burke doubts it as Stubens was researching magnetic fields in the ozone layer for "rainmaking." The explosions have caused a sulfuric acid leak. If the acid reaches the aquifer it will flow into the Rio Grande and poison New Mexico, Texas and Mexico. The acid can be neutralized by flooding the complex with sodium hydroxide, which Mac points out is used to clean the flesh off of skeletons. There is a little under 5 hours left before they have to neutralize the acid. MacGyver is introduced to Andy Colson (Dana Elcar) who explains how hard it will be to enter the lab's lower level. The elevator shaft is protected by 10,000 watt CO2 gas discharge lasers. MacGyver asks Colson for a cigarette, takes the whole pack and puts them in his bag. Colson says MacGyver will need more than he can fit in the bag to get into the lab. MacGyver replies, "The bag's not for what I take, Colson, it’s for what I find along the way."

Burke, MacGyver, Colson and Gantner

In a maintenance conduit connecting the elevator shaft, and wired with a 2-way radio, MacGyver uses the cigarettes to make smoke so he can see the laser, and then smashes his binoculars and uses a prism to reflect the laser back on its source, destroying it.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

On the way to the biolab, MacGyver finds the corridor collapsed but hears tapping on the other side. There is a wedged steel girder blocking his way, but if he could raise it a few inches, he might be able to move it. On the other end of the radio he hears Gantner take a sip of water, which gives him an idea. He fetches a fire hose, cuts off the nozzle and ties a knot in the end and stuffs it under girder. Then he turns on the water, raising the girder enough for MacGyver to move it. On the other side he finds a large group of survivors, including Barbara Spencer, who knows where Marlowe and Stubens were and insisted on going with MacGyver to show him.

Spencer

With 3 hours 27 minutes to go, MacGyver and Spencer have found that her route is blocked by fire, and they instead have to go through the "gas chamber." On the way, they come across a toppled vending machine with its chocolate candy bars strewn across the floor. He picks up a few, saying they might a well "store up on a little energy." Spencer is a little annoyed that MacGyver is thinking about candy at a time like this. As they walk along, with MacGyver eating a candy bar, Spencer is surprised that none of the airlocks have closed like they should have. Of course, at that moment they suddenly kick in. Mac and Spencer run and barely make it through to the "gas chamber," which they find filled with toxic gas. Meanwhile the tankers of sodium hydroxide have arrived, and will be ready to flood the lab in 55 minutes. On the surface, Colson and his team try to get the airlocks to reopen, but they can't, leaving MacGyver and Spencer trapped. With limited air, MacGyver decides to risk going through the gas lab to activate the vacuum pumps and clear the air. MacGyver tears his shirt in half for he and Spencer to cover their mouth and nose, which "might help a little." Spencer gives him a kiss. MacGyver gets to the pump panel. The pumps don't initially work, but MacGyver gets into the panel and "hot-wires" them, and continues on his way. Meanwhile on the surface, Burke tells Gantner that they aren't sure that the sodium hydroxide will be enough to stop the acid, so they are going to shoot an underground missile into the foundation to "fuse the substratum rock" above the aquifer to stop the acid. This will also destroy the lower levels of the Kiva lab. Gantner tries to warn MacGyver over the radio, but MacGyver accidently lost it in the gas lab. There is 31:30 before the missile launch.

MacGyver realized he lost the radio, but he and Spencer keep going in search of the acid leak, which they find. Spencer stands on MacGyver's shoulders to reach the leak and seals it using the chocolate bars, which are Lactose and Sucrose, C12-H22-O11, disaccharides, which react with the sulfuric acid to form a residue that seals the crack. On the surface, the clock on the wall is counting down from 18:31:30, but the characters say there's 9:30 to launch.

MacGyver and Spencer are almost to Marlowe and Stubens, but there's too much debris blocking the door. While Spencer tries to contact them on the intercom, MacGyver finds plastique residue on the debris. Now he knows it was a bomb. Spencer makes contact with Marlowe. Stubens sounds concerned that they are so close. MacGyver tells them to build a barricade because they are going to try to blast through the wall.

Spencer: "Don't tell me you know how to make a bomb out of a stick of chewing gum"
MacGyver: "Why, you got some?"

Spencer tells MacGyver they're in a metallurgy lab, and MacGyver realizes there should be sodium metal. He decides they only need a few grams but they need something water-soluble to put it is. Spencer has cold capsules. Meanwhile, 6 minutes to missile launch. The cold capsule of sodium in a glass jar of water with a stopper manages to blow a hole in the wall. MacGyver tells Spencer to wait outside while he goes in alone for Marlowe and Stubens. MacGyver gets in, and Stubens pulls a gun on him and Marlowe. Spencer then comes through the hole too, annoying Mac who just told her not to do that. Stubens revealed he set the bomb, hoping to kill himself and Marlowe, the only experts in their field, because their research had revealed a way to create a doomsday weapon that could destroy the ozone layer, killing everything on earth, and Stubens couldn't let that happen.

Stubens pulls a gun

With only 2 minutes to launch, Spencer charges Stubens and gets herself shot, but MacGyver gets the gun. Burke tells Colson to start flooding the lab with sodium hydroxide. MacGyver takes off to find the circuit breaker for the lights, and by turning on and off the lights in the entire Kiva lab in Morse code, sends a message. Fortunately one of the lab techs on the surface realizes it and takes down the message: "Acid Stopped. All Safe. Mac" and the launch is aborted with seconds to spare. Spencer's gunshot wound was apparently minor and as the medics wheel here out she has time for a goodbye kiss with MacGyver. MacGyver goes home to the observatory to play basketball with his "little brother." (MacGyver is wearing the same shirt he was before; the one he tore up in the lab.)

MacGyver plays basketball with his little brother

My Review:

I've always liked the MacGyver pilot episode. Both the opening gambit and the main episode have interesting stories and are well produced, with good casting and mostly-convincing special effects. As this is the pilot episode, there are some interesting aspects to this episode that didn't continue into the rest of the series. Most notably is the fact that MacGyver fires a gun in the opening gambit. The idea to have MacGyver refure to use guns as weapons apparently hadn't been developed yet. Michael Lerner, who playes Ed Gantner, is listed (but not shown) in the opening credits and may have been intended as a regular character. It's not clear if MacGyver's "little brother" was intended as a recurring character or not. MacGyver also carries a bag "for what he finds along the way" that isn't in the main series where MacGyver finds what he needs as he needs it. Dana Elcar, who would later become a series regular as Pete Thornton, plays unrelated character Andy Colson in the pilot. Elcar's Colson is different enough and Elcar is talented enough that he's easily acceptable in this episode as Colson, even knowing his future role.

Overall, this is an enjoyable episode that started MacGyver off on the right foot.