Directed by:
John GlenCinematography:
Alec MillsComposer:
Michael KamenCast:
Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Talisa Soto, Frank McRae, David Hedison, Everett McGill, Wayne Newton, Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Starke (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
James Bond (Timothy Dalton) returns with a vengeance in LICENCE TO KILL. Having just witnessed his best friend's wedding, Bond is shocked when he learns that ruthless drug runner Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) has assaulted the couple on their honeymoon, killing the bride. Assisted by the twiggy Drug Enforcement Agent Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) and the gadget wizard Q (Patrick Llewelyn), Bond resigns from Her Majesty's Secret Service and pursues justice on his own. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (8)
A hardboiled crime flick rather than a full-blooded Bond movie. The handling of the protagonist and, for that matter, the whole franchise is bold, though somewhat ill-advised. The replacement of an official mission with an aggressive quest for personal revenge, the exceedingly realistic background of the crimes (drug trafficking) and greater bloodiness (including a few gore treats) detract from the film’s lightness and the unmistakable escapism that is a trademark of Bond movies. The humour has mostly disappeared, which is a jump from one extreme to the opposite extreme following Roger Moore’s rollicking geriatric antics. If, however, you can endure the greater occurrence of chatty scenes, Licence to Kill works superbly in dramaturgical terms. By slowly tightening the screws, Bond essentially forces the villains to attack each other (the screenwriters were inspired by Kurosawa’s Yojimbo) in order to exact his definitive revenge on the repulsively cruel bad guy in the successfully intensified, action-packed climax. The unobtrusively beautiful Bond girl (Carey Lowell) elevates the film’s rating to just over three stars. 75%
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It's not that I have any problems with Timothy Dalton, and I actually quite like him as Bond, but not the films themselves. The last installment with Roger Moore was already quite a decline, which continued essentially throughout the times when Dalton and then Brosnan played Bond. With Dalton, the stories aren't interesting from a screenwriting perspective, although Licence to Kill tries to revisit some past events. With Brosnan, it's a fairly complete decline, although the first two installments were passable. I have to say that I'm glad we got Craig.
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License to Kill has exactly the same problem through the eyes of an ordinary viewer as Quantum of Solace has in the new millennium. It is a purely genre film that is confident, fierce, with raw action, aware of "itself" and its qualities. It is not independently functional, the viewer needs to have a little insight into Bond and be able to read between the lines and make connections in order to realise they are watching the most self-aware episode, one that pushes the bar higher in terms of hard action. The same applies to the Bond girls, where for the first time we can see what will be par for the course in the coming years - confident young women, refined, elegant, "image-oriented", representing the latest fashion trends. Until then, they were, with a few exceptions (Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me), merely accessories with almost no brain activity. Here, the trademarks change a little – or perhaps adapt – and the hero himself undergoes a change, paradoxically becoming much tougher and more straightforward than ever before, and yet still being much more human than it might seem at first glance. One of the building blocks of James Bond. The truck finale is textbook quality.
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Dalton's second Bond film is better in terms of quality than The Living Daylights. Timothy Dalton's Bond remains cool and sharp, the action scenes aren’t blown out of proportion, and the whole film somehow feels more real. I really enjoyed it.
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It's a shame Dalton only made two Bond films. With what he was criticized for (Bond is not Bond, but rather Rambo with a British accent), Daniel Craig is now celebrating success, and Dalton's films are still seen as the weakest of the entire franchise. Licence to Kill is definitely worth seeing - it's action, action and more action from start to finish, but with humor, suspense, pretty women, the inventions of Q and his department... Well, hell, is he Bond or is he not Bond? Answer: Indeed he is. And he’s certainly not inferior! Just the kind of guy Fleming was writing about!
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