Review of Licence to Kill (1989) by Chance L — 01 Dec 2009

Merry Christmas with Bondfreak - Episode 16.

This is the one Bond movie that dared to be different than all of the others. It gets inside Bond's head and has a look at him psychologically. Its a dark, vengeful and conflicted place and this comes to light in the darkest Bond film of the franchise. Dalton goes rogue as Bond with his own motives and for the first time, this isn't about saving the world, this is about getting revenge. License To Kill delivers on a lot of Bond fronts but add a very dark complex side to Bond.

Now taking Bond's character to the dark side has its pros and cons. On the one hand, its really strips Bond bare and you are able to see who he really is on the inside which is very different. On the other hand, Bond is a fantasy character. He is always just supposed to escape, bed the girls and kill the bad guys. But the bad guys have struck a cord with Bond by nearly murdering his long time friend Felix.

The villains in this movie are some of the most raw, real and in your face characters to date. We have the young Benicio del Toro as he players and underling trying to learn the tricks of his friends trade. He accurately depicts some guy who is just a follower and needs something to believe in. Then we have our main villain Sanchez. This guy is scary. He screams mexican drug lord and he tells us right away that he is not joking around. He is one messed up individual and he is the best main villain since Goldfinger. He kills people as if their nothing and he knows how to get under Bond's skin. Robert Davi is like one of the real mexican drug lords from Traffic except with a touch of the Bond villain in him. Its a sharp, brutal and downright frightening performance that deserved a Best Supporting Actor nod.

Then we have the girls. One of the girls is played very well by Carrie Lowell as the other spy who is trying to help Bond, but is playing both sides for her agencies benefit. She is smart, sexy and shows Bond who he really is in some scenes. Then the other, sexier girl is played by Talisa Soto. This girl is kind of useless and I wasn't sure why she was in the film other than to give Bond intel on Sanchez's schedule. While sexy to look at, she has no third dimension or other purpose than to look good on screen.

The action is definitely worth talking about. This is the most violent of the Bond pictures by far. From the pressure chamber, to the shark attack, to the grinder fight, this is one bloody Bond. But on the other hand this movie has some jaw dropping stunts. The water ski sequence where Bond barefoots it onto a plane is done for real which I thought was astonishing. But the crown jewel is the very long but unrelenting tanker chase at the climax. This has some of the biggest explosions, the most harrowing action, and white knuckle moments of the series because its all done for real. It's a massively satisfying finale to a great Bond film.

Timothy never was the best Bond, but his two films dared to be different. The reason why audiences didn't take to this film well in the late 80s is because of the fact that this was pretty much a reinvention of Bond that audiences didn't need. They wanted the good old charming Bond, bedding the gorgeous girls, making narrow escapes. This was something they did not expect: realism. License to Kill throws everything you know as Bond out the window and makes an edgy, violent, action packed surprise of a Bond film that you won't see coming. Thumbs up!