[FILM] Licence To Kill (1989)

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

A curious and very underrated entry into the 007 canon.

Casino Royale would become quite notoreious for abondinging many of the familiar elements that had become part of the formulo over the years. But in many ways TLK is a huge departure from the normal Bond style also.

First of all Bond isnt on a mission. There are none of the customary scenes in M's office, the chit chat with Money Penny and the usual briefing by Q that follows straight after that.

This is, in it's core, a revenge film. For the first time the character of Felix Leiter is actually given something interesting to do as he is thrown in with a shark setting up Bonds motivation get kill the men who hurt his friend (the shark either Felix is straight from the novel Live And Let Die)

Another unusual element for Bond is the villain he is going after. This is one of the very few Bond films before Casino Royale that doesnt have any Spectre/Russians/Communism plot what so ever. It's 1989. Action films dealing with latin American drug lords were all the rage, the Iron Curtain was slowly coming down. In a way it makes sense.

Licence To Kill feels very much like EON's attempt at doing an 1980's American action film ala Commando, Lethal Weapon or Die Hard. The violence and bloodletting is ramped up quite a bit (though never up to 80's Joel Silver levels).

There is quite a clash of styles between the Bond formula and your average 80's action movie though. And at times it shows. M and Moneypenney are largely sidelined, but Q is given a bigger role then ever as Bond's sidekick. The gadgets are kept to a bare minimum, but Bond is given a gun which is keyed to his palm print (much like Skyfall years later and the pay off is the same)

Weird btw to have a movie set in some latin american country and have 007 suddenly be attacked by Ninja's from Hong Kong.

Timothy Dalton plays James Bond for his second and last time. Many reviewers claimed he was bored with the rle already. But that's nonsense. The script gives him less variation then he had with The Living Daylights, but Dalton is in excellent shape throughout. It sort of resembles the situation with Daniel Craig with QoS, where he was forced to play Bond as vengfefull and depressed for much of that movie (Licence To Kill shares more then a few elements with Quantum Of Solace, but is ultimatly the better film)

Based on his performance in these two film I would have loved to have had Dalton do a few more. Sadly faith intervened.

Robert Davi plays what is in essence a stock villain. A latino drug lord who values loyalty over money and keeps a pet Iguana and troublesome mistress and kills anyone who thinks is double crossing him. This could be quite boring but Davi has a fantastic amount of charisma and is very imposing to watch. He surrounds himself with Henchmen. Many of them rather dull. But we can see a very young Benicio Del Toro and a surprising role for Wayne Newton. Anthony Zerbe is also quite good as Milton Krest, who gets one of the more gory deaths in the film.

The Bond girls are quite decent, but also quite restrained compared to the previous Bonds. Talisa Soto is a fine looking woman, but a very poor actress so her role really falls flat. Carrey Lowell is quite good, and looks great with short hair. But the character is underdeveloped even for Bond girls standards at that time and the romance really isnt that believable.

The film has some very impressive action scenes. It helps to have a younger actor who's willing do do some of the stunts himself. There's a cool scene where Bond basically ropes in a Cessna, while on his way to a wedding. There's water-skying without any ski's, and to top its all of there's a fantastic sequence with 4 tanker trucks brimmed with gasoline which are all satisfyingly blown up. This would be the last Bond film to use no CGI whatsoever.

It would also be the last film produced by Cubby Broccoli, the last one written by Ricard Maibaum and the last one shot by John Glenn. Bond would be gone for 6 years and when it returned there would be a whole bunch of fresh faces. Both in front and behind the camera. In many ways this is the last vintage Bond film.

And dammit. It's a good one!

as usual it's a bit too long, a bit too slow and the plot has a whole lots of things added that aren't really needed (the whole Stinger sub plot for instance, or the Hong Kong DEA). John Glenn does a good job directing it. It has the usual bright, daylight look but that rather fits the locations of the film.

Michael Kamen does his one and only Bond score, and I know that people hated it at the time, but it's FANTASTIC!

Kamen puts his own twist on the immortal Bond theme and makes it a focal point of much of the action music, which is the most furious this side of Thunderball. The rest of the music is also pure Kamen, with stylistic touches similar to his Joel Silver action films. But with a rather nice latin flavor. The OST doesnt do this score justice, though the final track Licence Revoked is 9 minutes of brilliance!

The song by Gladys Knight is quite good, though the 80's soul sound really doesnt fit very well with either the rest of the score or the films subject matter. and ofcourse Barry took them to court for ripping of Goldfinger.

The Brosnan films would continue with some aspects introduced in this film. Usually the missions would be more personal for Bond. But otherwise they would return to more familiar, safer territory.

Licence To Kill wasnt very popular in the USA and suffered from competition of other big films that year. Because of this it wasnt until 2006 that EON would do anything as radical as this film, which now seems largely forgotten.

But, weird hybrid as it might be, I think it's rather excellent!

***1/2 out of ****

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

The Bond film that tried to take the character into the 'murkier waters' of the Craig films, unfortunately way before audiences were seemingly ready for it.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,533]

Agreed, on both counts. A good analysis by Steef, backed-up by Sweep.

The original title would have given the film poingnancy, and it "feels", IMO, like "OHMSS", in that it is a breed apart.

Best line: "Turn the bloody machine off!"

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

I think Davi is great in this, actually ... Sanchez is chilling, due to his believability. And Hedison manages to make an impact as Leiter purely by being (up until then) the only actor to have played him more than once.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,533]

"What did he promise you? His heart? Give her his heart".

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I think Davi is great in this, actually ... Sanchez is chilling, due to his believability.

He's a big improvement over Joe Don Bakers ridiculous baddie from the previous film.

Its a pity though that this film is lacking any proper showdown between 007 and Sanchez. Near the end of the tanker truck scene it looks like they are gonna have aproper fight, but it doesnt really kick off.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Don't you want to know why?

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

No punch-up, but Sanchez does at least meet a satisfyingly nasty end. Dario's and Krest's are 'orrible, too.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Yeah that was cool.