Licence To Kill

Cast & Credits

Actor                                                       Character

Timothy Dalton                                   James Bond

Carey Lowell                                         Pam Bouvier                     

Robert Davi                                          Franz Sanchez

Talisa Soto                                            Lupe Lamora

Directed by: John Glen

Original running time: 2 hours and 13 minutes

After the gunbarrel sequence we see James and Felix Leiter on the way to Felix's wedding with 007 as the best man.  DEA agents approach them on route to the wedding and tell Leiter that international drug trafficker Franz Sanchez has been spotted where they are in the Florida Keys.  Knowing that this might be his only chance to nab kingpin, Leiter decides to try to go after him immediately.  Cue Sanchez walking in on his cheating girlfriend Lupe.  Franz Sanchez is played by Robert Davi.  For those of you who don't know who that is, he is the Hispanic guy with bad skin that was the villain in every other movie that came out in the 80's.  He asks if the man that she was cheating with promised her his heart and tells his henchman to give it to her.  Whoa!  His henchman Dario is played a very young Benicio (Benny the Bull) Del Toro.  He has a knife and knows how to use it.  After Dario and a couple others take the unfortunate sap outside, Franz pulls out a bullwhip and proceeds to beat Lupe with it.  As Sanchez makes a break for it (apparently after disciplining his woman); Bond, Leiter, and the DEA agents show up.  This leads to a shoot out between them and Sanchez's men and then to Sanchez being chased across the sky.  Eventually Bond reels the mega pusher in by "fishing".  But wait, Bond and Felix need to get to the wedding so they skydive down to Felix's bride to be Della (played by Terri from Three's Company).  All of that happened before the credits?  I hope that they can keep this up.

Unfortunately they can't.  The credits are extremely bland by Bond movie standards.  It's a lot of stuff with a camera taking pictures of beautiful models and dancers leaping.  Overall it's very below average, but that's nothing compared to the theme song sung by Gladys Knight.  The less said about this song, the better but I have to do my job in order to maintain my journalistic integrity.  Remember the theme song from Goldfinger?  It tries to sound like that but doesn't have the big horns, crashing cymbals, or any of the flair.  If the song Goldfinger is Mario Kart, then Licence To Kill is Donkey Kong: Barrel Blast.  What makes things even worse is that it seems to go on for about a half an hour.  I know that it says that it logs in under five minutes, but I swear that I could watch paint dry waiting for it to end and would rather do so.  Thankfully, the rest of the soundtrack fares much better.  This time the soundtrack is done by Michael Kamen who is known for scoring franchises like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard.  While I don't think that it's nearly as good as John Barry's stuff, I do think that it's better than most of the movies that have followed.  One plus is that he's not afraid to pull out the Bond theme and that's always a good thing.

A little while after the credits we see Bond, Felix, and Della post wedding giving Bond a gift.  A lighter that says, "Love alway, Felix and Della".  She throws Bond her garter and he says "No thanks."  You can just see the tortured look on his face as he is about to drive off.  This was a very nice touch and shows that Bond is still haunted by what happened to his ex-wife Tracy.  This leads into a scene where we see DEA agent Ed Kilifer help "spring" Sanchez because of a huge payoff which leads into Dario and other goons showing up at Felix Leiter's place.  When Leiter begs that they let his wife go, Dario gives a creepy and well executed line (you could tell in this movie that this Del Toro guy could act).  Poor Felix is taken to a shark bait factory that is a front for Sanchez's activity.  There he meets Sanchez, Dario, and that rat Kilifer who explains that everyone has a price.  After saying some cold blodded things to him, the psychos throw him through a trap door down to be eaten by sharks.  Later,  Bond returns to the Leiter residence to find that Della was raped and murdered and that Feix has been tied to a chair, bound and gagged with a note on his chest.  It stated "He disagreed with something that ate him."  Felix winds up living, but had one of his legs bitten off.  

After following up on a couple of leads, Bond checks the bait place out.  He learns that cocaine is being smuggled in the bait.  He also bumps into Killifer who he does something extremely nasty to.  I would just like to say that this movie is not for the faint of heart is by far the most brutal of the series.  After Kilifer turns up dead, a few DEA agents take 007 to see M.  M explains to him that he is violating the law and that he has a mission for him in Istanbul, Turkey.  When Bond tells him that he isn't going, M takes his 00 licence from him.  This leads to James running off and going rogue.  He soon sneaks aboard the Wavekrest, the boat of Milton Krest - owner of the bait shop.  After being found out, Bond makes a water skiing escape and climbs on board of a sea plane outside.  It is filled with cocaine and 5 million dollars.  

Shortly afterward, Bond finds out that all of Leiter's recent CIA contacts have been liquidated.  All except for one named Pam Bouvier that he sets up a meeting with at a bar.  Bond does the unthinkable and orders a Bud with a lime after Pam does.  Next thing you know, Dario and the boys show up which leads into a bar fight that causes the Bud with a lime to be spilt before it's drank by Bond.  Whew!  That was close.  Also, he and Pam narrowly escape the bar and get into a boat.  Oh no!  Dario shot Pam in the back with a shotgun.  Wait!  She was wearing body armor.  They wind up bickering with each other and then wind up being out of gas because the shot hit the fuel line.  Oh well, I guess this gives them time to know each other.  It turns out that Pam was a pilot for the army and still does flights for hire.  This comes in handy since Bond has a lot of money and wants to go to the Republic of Isthmus to go after Sanchez.  She agrees and he goes to the Banco De Isthmus to deposit his money which just so happens to be a place that Sanchez owns.  Bond offers his services to him as a hitman.  Another thing we find out is that Franz has a high maintenance iguana that wears a diamond necklace. 

Long story short, Bond gains Sanchez's trust by telling him that he's an ex-secret agent and that Krest stole the $5 million from him and plants the money in the Wavekrest.  This results in an extremely vicious killing.  This movie was PG-13, but was really pushing it in some parts.  It turns out that televangelist Joe Butcher (played by Wayne Newton!) has a show that's a front for Sanchez.  People are buying his drugs ver the air that way and Butcher actually also is making them an extra killing on the side.  His meditation temple is also a factory where Sanchez's people have devised a way to turn cocaine into gasoline to be smuggled where he can turn it back again.  A bunch of gasoline trucks are full and ready to be shipped.  Also, Sanchez has four stinger missiles which he plans on using to shoot down a US flight if the DEA doesn't get off of his back.  Without giving away too much, a lot of really cool stuff happens in the final act of the movie.  Wayne Newton gets an extended cameo, Bond gets found out by Dario which leads to another very violent scene, a tremendous chase scene involving three massive tanker trucks and a plane, and one of the most satisfying endings in the history of the franchise.

I know that a lot of people talk badly about this movie, but I think that they do so because they hear other people do it.  While Dalton was a little rough around the edges in the Living Daylights, he really settled into the role of 007 in Licence to Kill.  Is he Sean Connery or Roger Moore?  No, but he wasn't trying to be.  He played James Bond in his own way and think that he was great as a "realistic" Bond.  Many have said that this movie is not a Bond movie, but I disagree.  This the magnificent revenge flick that Diamonds Are Forever should have been and that Quantum of Solace tried to be.  Wow!  When a movie is written for Dalton, you can see what he can really do.  I can't wait for his next Bond film.  Wait!!!  What???

4 out of 5 - Above average for a Bond movie.  The theme song stinks, at times the movie jumps round too much, and Talisa Soto is not a very good actress besides for her stunning good looks.  But besides for that, there's not much wrong that one can find with this movie.  It has a great personal plot for Bond involving his old friend Felix Leiter and while they might not be trying to take over the world, the villains are great.    

Cool thing to know:  The movie was originally going to be called Licence Revoked, but it was changed because it was thought that many Americans wouldn't know what the word revoked meant.  Come on guys, we're not that stupid!

Another cool thing to know:  David Hedison was the first actor to play Felix Leiter more than once.  He also appeared in Live And Let Die.

Yet another cool thing to know:  The President of Isthmus was played by Pedro Armendariz Jr.  His father, Pedro Armendariz Sr., played Kerim Bay in From Russia With Love.

And another:  The bullets ricocheting off of the oil tanker are actually the Bond theme if you listen really hard.

One last cool thing to know:  A couple of things in this movie came from Ian Fleming's writings.  The shark maiming of Felix Leiter was in the novel Live And Let Die and Milton Krest was a character from his short story, The Hildebrandt Rarity.

James Bond will return next Monday in GoldenEye.              

I believe that you said that you liked Dalton in The Living Daylights.  I personally think that this is the better of his two movies and that you should definitely check it out.

Robert Davi is the main villain.  You would know who he was if you saw him.  One of the go to bad guys of the 1980s. 

Ah, here's one of the few pre-Brosnan Bond movies that I remember dearly. (Seriously, I watched all that violent stuff before I was ten. Dad told me to cover my eyes, but I didn't :P). I especially remember the last 'truck-scenes' which are packed with nostalgasms. They really nailed those scenes down perfectly!

Anyways, excellent review as always. The cool-things-to-know section always makes you look forward to re-watch them yet again someday

I liked the song... it gave Bond something grander instead of the pop songs.. at least it's better then the last 5 Bond titlesongs..

Really?  You liked it better than A View To A Kill?

If that's what he meant, then I agree that it is better than 4 out of those 5.  I like the Chris Cornel song, but the rest are crap. 

No I meant the last 5 new james bond, with Madonna, Garbage, Sheryl Crow, Alicia Keys + Jack Black and Chris Cornell...
I grew up with a ha and duran duran so it's a lot of hit and miss depending on the day if I like their songs.. -__-"

Yeah, I just realized what you meant.  I liked the Chris Cornel song, but the other four definitely are worse.  I'll give you that.

Licence To Kill is an alright Bond movie. Although the title song is not my most favourite, I certainly don't think it's horrible like some of the recent ones. The tanker chase scene is pretty awesome, and I like the fact that Q comes along for the mission, similarly to how he did in the movie Octopussy. He provides some comedy, which is always welcome.

I was never really too crazy about Timothy Dalton at first. I was always a fan of the more light-hearted Bonds with the tongue-in-cheek humour. But after some time, I eventually warmed up to Dalton a little more, and I think he does a pretty good job in his two Bond outings. Out of the more serious Bonds, I would take Timothy Dalton over Daniel Craig anytime. Dalton just looks more suitable for Bond than Craig, and although Dalton is serious, he is nowhere near as miserable as Craig. The Timothy Dalton films also still had some Bond atmosphere, which I feel has been completely obliterated in the Craig films.