Having kicked off the Timothy Dalton era with the satisfactory The Living Daylights, Bond makers Eon apparently wanted to further drill down further into 007’s gritty side as touched upon in that film and move the series on from the quip laden and outlandish Roger Moore entries. With few if any reliable Ian Fleming plots or titles left, they were free to come up with their own plot and characters yet instead took elements of short story For Your Eyes Only and the more violent sequences of Live & Let Die that hadn’t been included in the 1973 movie of the same name.
Licence To Kill isn’t your average Bond movie. Indeed, a lukewarm critical response along with disappointing box office returns meant that many wondered if the franchise had any place in cinema anymore. That this plus legal wranglings delayed them making another film for another six years only enhanced this feeling. It would also put an end to Dalton in the role which seems a shame given his interesting portrayal that remained faithful to Fleming’s character.
Essentially a revenge movie, the evil deed from the villain is committed not long after the pre-credits title sequence which is different from the usual template. Drug lord Sanchez has a unique attitude to business: processing and selling narcotics via a pseudo religious telly channel. He also bribes officials which is what allows him to commit his dastardly deed to which Bond takes exception.
MI6’s finest then disobeys orders and resigns his licence to kill before going on a personal mission to disrupt the empire belonging to Sanchez and kill him.
In an era where Bond tends to go off grid in just about every film (Daniel Craig has managed to either vanish, disobey orders or retire in all five of his films) the idea of Dalton’s lone wolf Bond doesn’t seem all that compelling now but back in 1989 it was certainly new territory given Connery and Moore’s idea of insubordination was out smarting M about the vintage of a Sherry or making pithy remarks about Q branch’s gadgets.
While it is refreshing initially, Bond’s mission soon starts to fall back into the conventional template of the series. He engages former CIA agent Pam Bouvier to assist him as he travels to the fictional Isthmus City where Sanchez is based. This is strange because he pays her – using money he steals from Sanchez – to fly him there having himself piloted an aircraft for that heist. Things get even more inconsistent when Moneypenny contacts ‘Q’ to have the old fella fly out to help Bond with some new gadgets. The makers want to have their cake and eat it which is particularly annoying when the gadgets prove to be of little help to Bond’s mission.
Due to plot contrivance, the right-hand man of Sanchez is the only person who can identify Bond as the threat he is and he conveniently goes missing for most of the movie while Bond gets acquainted with an unwitting Sanchez.
Licence To Kill is littered with flaws and superfluous characters. There’s a whole collection of henchmen the most important and intriguing of whom Dario (Benecio Del Toro) is absent for an hour while the others are there for some half-baked sub plots involving the betrayal of Sanchez and a deep state missile trade off involving Bouvier. These are unnecessary but only seem to come about because the central revenge plot is lacking. At no point does 007 contemplate the extreme consequences of his decision. Only when MI6 send someone to extract him from South America does there appear to be any consequence as far as the British government are concerned but that fails and we don’t hear a peep from them again while ‘Q’ is still assisting him.
Sanchez (Robert Davi) is an okay villain although two dimensional as we never learn anything about his background or motivation. Given the relatively simple nature of his enterprise (he is not blackmailing the world powers with atomic warheads or trying to annex Western Europe) perhaps that isn’t a problem. However, the ease by which Bond gains his trust is not believable.
The female love interests are amongst the weakest in the entire series. Bouvier is entwined with Bond within seconds of being alone with him after only their second scene together. She’s meant to be one of the more progressive female leads but ends up being given little to do of any substance. However, Talisa Soto as Lupe really is a waste of space. She is the emotional tennis ball between Bond and Sanchez but has all the screen charisma of a haddock. She also implausibly falls for our hero extremely quickly, proclaiming in the process “I love James, so much!”. Dreadful stuff. Which is a real shame given she begins the film as the victim of shocking domestic violence which could have been a story in itself for the movie but she ultimately becomes nothing more than a trophy.
The movie is also guilty of a trait which seems unthinkable in the early stages. It actually becomes dull. Keen to keep up with the violent Hollywood action films of the time like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, it switches nihilistic and gratuitous violence for the usual eye-catching stunts and sequences we come to expect from Bond. There is some guile in the demise of Sanchez but there’s too many automatic firearms at play here.
Licence To Kill nearly signalled the end of the franchise altogether. Legal disputes meant a six year hiatus and this would be the final appearance of Dalton. As a consequence, he has never received the same plaudits as Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig. His tenure is often overlooked or forgotten about which does him a disservice.
However, perhaps lessons were learned after this attempt to shake the series up. The producers went back to basics in 1995’s GoldenEye and that got the franchise back as a going concern. Yet, when things again needed overhauling, the makers went with an unconventional casting, a reboot and a radical change of tone and storytelling. They were infinitely more brave and surefooted than with Licence To Kill and were rewarded in the shape of Casino Royale. Therefore, Licence To Kill, while not one of the better movies in the series, has a curiosity factor and is interesting viewing and an insight into how the Bond films have had their fair share of trial and tribulations.
Athon 