In Casino Royale, Judi Dench’s M denounced Bond as a “blunt instrument,” and the movie as whole took a kind of righteous, sadistic pleasure in hitting its past-his-expiry-date hero below the belt—the same place that Auric Goldfinger had aimed his laser beam 50 years earlier.
— Adam Nayman (The Ringer)
Le Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorists, is scheduled to participate in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, where he intends to use his winnings to establish his financial grip on the terrorist market. M sends Bond—on his maiden mission as a 00 Agent—to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. With the help of Vesper Lynd and Felix Leiter, Bond enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career.