Review of Licence to Kill (1989) by Noname   — 19 Dec 2014

DEA agents collect James Bond (Timothy Dalton)- MI6 agent 007-and his friend, now DEA agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison), on their way to Leiter's wedding in Key West, to have them assist in capturing drugs lord Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi). Bond and Leiter capture Sanchez by attaching a hook and cord to Sanchez's plane in flight near The Bahamas and pulling it out of the air with a Coast Guard helicopter. Afterwards, Bond and Leiter parachute down to the church in time for the ceremony. Sanchez bribes DEA agent Ed Killifer and escapes on his way to prison. Meanwhile, Sanchez's henchman Dario (Benicio del Toro) and his crew ambush Leiter and his wife Della. Leiter is maimed by a great white shark and Della is raped and killed. When Bond learns Sanchez has escaped, he returns to Leiter's house to find Della dead and Felix alive, but seriously wounded; Bond swears revenge on Sanchez. As the DEA refuses to help because Sanchez is out of its jurisdiction, Bond, with Leiter's friend Sharkey, start their own investigation into what happened to their friend. The pair discover a marine research centre run by Milton Krest (Anthony Zerbe), one of Sanchez's henchmen, where Sanchez has hidden cocaine and a submarine for smuggling. After Bond kills Killifer by pushing him into the tank at the centre with the shark that maimed Leiter, M meets Bond in Key West's Hemingway House and orders him to an assignment in Istanbul, Turkey. Bond resigns after turning down the assignment, but M suspends Bond instead and immediately revokes his licence to kill. Bond flees from MI6 custody and becomes a rogue agent, bereft of official backing but later surreptitiously helped by MI6 armourer Q. Bond boards the Wavekrest-a ship run by Milton Krest-and foils Sanchez's latest drug shipment, stealing five million dollars in the process, but discovers that Sharkey had been killed by Sanchez's henchmen. Bond recruits Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell), an ex-CIA agent and pilot whom he rescues from Dario at a Bimini bar, and journeys with her to the Republic of Isthmus. In Isthmus City, Bond is met by Q. He finds his way into Sanchez's employment by posing as an assassin looking for work. Two Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau officers foil Bond's attempt to assassinate Sanchez and take him to an abandoned warehouse. They are joined by Fallon, an MI6 agent who was sent by M to apprehend Bond, dead or alive. Bond is about to be sedated via injection and sent back to the United Kingdom in disgrace when Sanchez's men rescue him and kill the officers, believing them to be the assassins. Later, with the aid of Bouvier, Q, and Sanchez's girlfriend Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto), Bond frames Krest by placing the $5 million he had stolen into the hyperbaric chamber on board the Wavekrest. An infuriated Sanchez then traps Krest in the chamber and decompresses the pressurised chamber with an axe, explosively killing him. Meanwhile, Sanchez admits Bond into his inner circle. Will Bond be able to keep his identity secret, or will Sanchez see Bond's true intentions?

Released in the summer of 1989, "Licence To Kill" suffered in competition from a welter of big box office blockbusters, including Batman (1989), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), The Abyss (1989), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) and Ghostbusters II (1989). Ever since, all Bond films have been released in either fall or winter. In August 1990, after the box office failure of this film in the United States, Director 'John Glen (II)' left EON Productions. Thirteen-time Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum died on 4 January 1991. Some called this a "bloodless coup". Legal wrangling over the ownership of the James Bond character, coupled by these departures, delayed the release of the next film. In the interim, producer Albert R. Broccoli retired, and star Timothy Dalton decided not to play the role a third time. 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). Licence Renwed means the exact opposite of Licence Revoked. Another reason for the change was that "license revoked" denotes losing one's driving privileges in the USA. Taglines for "Licenced Revoked" included "You're looking at the world's most wanted man" and "Dismissed. Disgraced. Dishonored. Deadly." In the movie, when M says to James Bond, "Your Licence to kill is revoked", both titles are referenced at the same time. After a minor controversy as to whether the British or American spelling ("licence" or "license") would be used in the title, the British spelling won out. Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 1/2 stars out of 4, saying "the stunts all look convincing, and the effect of the closing sequence is exhilarating ... Licence to Kill is one of the best of the recent Bonds." Jack Kroll, writing in Newsweek described Licence to Kill as "a pure, rousingly entertaining action movie". Kroll was mixed in his appraisal of Dalton, calling him "a fine actor who hasn't yet stamped Bond with his own personality", observing "Director John Glen is the Busby Berkeley of action flicks, and his chorus line is the legendary team of Bond stunt-persons who are at their death-defying best here". For Time magazine, Richard Corliss bemoaned that although the truck stunts were good, it was "a pity nobody - not writers Michael G. Wilson, and Richard Maibaum nor director John Glen - thought to give the humans anything very clever to do." Corliss found Dalton "misused" in the film, adding that "for every plausible reason, he looks as bored in his second Bond film as Sean Connery did in his sixth." This was Timothy Dalton´s second Bond (and final) outing, and in my eyes a hell of a lot better than his previous one, the really poor "The Living Daylights". Bond is a bit more serious and a bit more brutal in "Licence To Kill" and it seems to fit Dalton better. He seems more at ease as Bond this time around, even if he´s not as convincing as Sean Connery was in the beginning of his Bond career. I love the opening sequence, catching Sanchez on their way to Leiter´s wedding and then actually parachuting to the church. Dalton is ok as Bond. Davi and del Toro makes good bad guys. Carey Lowell is a stunner in her short hair and lovely approach, while the equally beautiful Talisa Soto has that bad girl twinkle in her dark eyes. I reckon with the brutal revenge theme, Bond´s revoked licence to kill and the war on drugs we do get a "different" Bond story here, but not a bad Bond story in my eyes. Yes, the stunts and action sequences might be a bit over the top, then again it´s a Bond movie.