Review of Licence to Kill (1989) by Richard R — 25 Feb 2017

All of Timothy Dalton's Bond adventures were above average and, though he only starred in two, this does say something about how well he did. He was the embodiment of the unreliable, roguish Bond which creator Fleming took time in painstakingly characterising in his books.

This an outright revenge movie, a daring direction for a Bond film chapter, in which our hero/anti-hero here dedicates his time to making the gangsters who killed a close friend of his pay for with their lives.

In Licence to Kill, Bond is at constant loggerheads with his superiors, defying them at nearly every step and going against the grain in almost every way. Perhaps not as good as The Living Daylights, which hovers closer to the 7/10 mark than this, it is Dalton's vengeful movement and driven methods which mark this Bond film out as something different from the rest.

Practically the same formula was attempted in Quantum of Solace last year but that seemed to lack heart. There is no shortage of that here though, and despite material which is a tad weak at times, Licence To Kill is memorable because, at the time, they suddenly found themselves up against the Rambo, Terminator and Die Hard franchises, agreeably steep competition, and something hard to be done about it.