Bond Revisited

License To Kill (1989)
Bond 16

After attending the wedding of friend CIA agent Felix Leiter and his bride Della Churchill, and helping Feliex and the DEA capture ruthless drug lord Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi), seductive British secret agent James Bond 007 (Timothy Dalton) disobeys orders and turns in his license to kill, when Sanchez escapes, tortures Felix and leaves him for dead and kills Della. James sets off on a personal vendetta against the drug lord, and arrives in Mexico City. Helped by cocky and beautiful CIA agent and pilot Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell), Sanchez's sexy mistress Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto) and Bond's friend and fellow quartermaster 'Q'. Bond plays on both sides of the law, as he infiltrates his organization to bringing Sanchez down. 007 embarks in the ultimate confrontation and he will not rest until he kills Sanchez and those responsible for torturing Felix and murdering Della. Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Some scenes had to be trimmed to reduce an R rating to a PG-13. It was the first Bond film to receive an American rating higher than PG. In the final chase sequence just after 007 lands on the tanker, Sanchez fires at Bond hitting the truck's fuel tanks. The sound of the bullets ricocheting off the tanks plays the start of the James Bond theme. The project was originally entitled "Licence Revoked" and teaser artwork was produced with this title. Among the reasons for changing the title was to avoid confusion with the 1981 James Bond novel, "Licence Renewed", written by John Gardner (who ended up writing a novel based on this film as well). It has also been widely reported that a survey revealed that fewer than 50% of Americans questioned knew what "revoked" meant (Are we Americans really that stupid?). Bond's controversial betrayal of M was, in part, a way to sidestep the fact that the British have no jurisdiction over a Latin American drug cartel. In AMC's Bond Girls Are Forever (2002) (TV), Carey Lowell said that she shut her eyes and flinched every time she fired the gun and had to be trained to fire with her eyes open because a CIA op would not flinch. However, she still winces a bit whenever she fires the handgun.

First EON Series James Bond film not to take its title from an Ian Fleming James Bond novel or short story, even though there were still some usable titles available such as "Property of a Lady", "Quantum of Solace", "007 In New York", "Risico" and"The Hildebrand Rarity". The story, however, is not completely original, as it takes significant elements from the novel "Live and Let Die" and the short story "The Hildebrand Rarity". The title "Licence To Kill" can be argued though to have been derived from actual wordage written by Ian Fleming as with the text for the title The World Is Not Enough (1999), which is the Bond family motto.

The Characters:

• James Bond - Timothy Dalton in his last Bond movie.
• Franz Sanchez - Robert Davi. Sanchez is a South American drug lord who specializes in cocaine. He has an elaborate infrastructure for transporting his drugs - initially using submarines, and later finding a process for dissolving cocaine in gasoline for covert transport. He also finances a televangelist, Professor Joe Butcher, in order to use his show as a contact point for his distribution network. Befitting his wealth, he lives in lavish style, with multiple homes and a hidden base where his drugs were processed. He has a pet iguana, which would perch on its master in a manner similar to Blofeld's cat. He is also known for his uncommon brutality in dealing with those he perceived as disloyal to him; it was not uncommon for him to kill a man for a single perceived disloyal act. Not everyone who crossed him was killed, as he believed there were "worse things than dying."
• Dario - Benicio Del Toro. Dario was Sanchez's favorite henchman and he often employed a large knife with which to kill his employer's enemies. Dario met a grisly end in Sanchez's drug factory when Bond caused him to fall from a conveyor belt and into a machine for crushing cocaine.
• Pam Bouvier - Carey Lowell. A former army pilot, Bouvier works as a CIA informer, posing as a courier for drug lord Franz Sanchez. Bond tracks her down to a bar in Bimini, just in time to help her escape from Dario. She agrees to help Bond track down Sanchez, playing Bond's executive secretary. At the same time, she meets Colonel Heller to set up a deal granting him immunity if Sanchez is arrested. Bouvier, with the assistance of Q, follows Bond and Sanchez to the secret warehouse, where she shoots Dario and helps destroy Sanchez's drug convoy.
• Lupe Lamora - Talisa Soto. Lupe Lamora is villain Franz Sanchez's girlfriend. She despises him, but stays with him out of fear. In the beginning of the film, Sanchez finds Lupe in a bed with another man and whipped her for disloyalty. Lupe is sent to the Wavecrest, which is owned by Milton Krest. When Bond sneaks aboard the Wavecrest, Bond finds Lupe in Krest's room. Lupe doesn't tell Krest or Sanchez that Bond was there. Bond escapes and goes off to Isthmus, where he finds Sanchez and Lupe. Lupe then helps Bond escape from Sanchez's hideout. Lupe then tells Pam Bouvier and Q that Bond is still in Isthmus, and that she loves Bond. At the end, however, Bond chooses Pam over her, and tries to set her up with the President of Isthmus.

The Theme Song:

Initially Eric Clapton and Vic Flick were asked to write and perform the theme song to Licence to Kill. The theme was said to have been a new version based on the James Bond Theme. The guitar riff heard in the original recording of the theme was played by Flick. The prospect, however, fell apart and Gladys Knight's song and performance was chosen. The song (one of the longest to ever be used in a Bond film) was based on the "horn line" from Goldfinger, which required royalty payments to the original writers. The music video of "Licence to Kill" was directed by Daniel Kleinman, who later took over the reins of title designer from Maurice Binder for the 1995 Bond film, GoldenEye.

The Vehicles & Gadgets:

• Dentonite toothpaste — Plastic explosives disguised as ordinary toothpaste. The remote trigger is disguised as a packet of Lark cigarettes.
• Signature gun — A Hasselblad camera that when assembled became a sniper rifle that only worked for Bond, due to a "optical palm reader" built into the grip.
• Laser Polaroid camera — When the flash is used on this camera, it shoots a laser. The pictures it takes are X-rays.
• Exploding alarm clock — Q carries it with him to Isthmus, but it is not used. "Guaranteed never to wake up anyone who uses it."
• Lincoln Mark VII — Bond's rental car in Key West.
• Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow — Much like Moonraker where Bond was a passenger in a Silver Wraith II, he is chauffeured around Isthmus City in a Rolls-Royce. [Source]

The Pretitle Sequence:

The story opens with Bond and his friend, DEA agent Felix Leiter (previously of the CIA), on their way to Leiter's wedding. Meanwhile, DEA agents spot drug lord Franz Sanchez flying into Crab Key, Florida, where he catches his mistress in bed with another man. In retaliation for her infidelity, he orders his henchmen to cut the man's heart out (offscreen) and whips her brutally. The DEA dispatches a helicopter to collect Leiter in an attempt to capture Sanchez, and Bond tags along. The pair capture Sanchez by pulling his plane out of the air with a Coast Guard helicopter, and then parachute down to arrive at the wedding on time.

I don't remember this being as good as it was. It definitely has a Yojimbo feel to it. Yogimbo was a Akira Kurosawa movie where the main character played two sides of bad guys against each other. In this case Bond gets Sanchez to kill off a few of his own guys so he doesn't have to. Dalton was more of himself in this one, less jokes, more serious. But it is Pamela Bouvier who is extraordinary in this movie. She is the first Bond girl since Pussy Galore that was able to match Bond all the way through the movie. Some of the Bond Girls have been good in the first of the movie, then become eye candy for the rest (sitting around waiting for Bond to come save them). But Bouvier needed little help and even, gasp, coming to Bond's aid by killing Dario.

This is the last James Bond film for six years. Legal wrangling over the ownership of the franchise, coupled by the death of longtime screenwriter Richard Maibaum and the decision by Timothy Dalton not to play the role a third time, delayed the release of the next film.

Next Up: GoldenEye, Bond 17, James Bond teams up with the lone survivor of a destroyed Russian research center to stop the hijacking of a nuclear space weapon by a fellow agent believed to be dead.