License to Kill

The second (and last) film of the Timothy Dalton era, License to Kill marked the first instance of a Bond film that did not borrow its title from an Ian Fleming Novel- though those familiar with his works will easily spot the similarities between this film and the plot of Live and Let Die. As if in reference to this, Felix Leiter is portrayed by David Hedison, who previous appeared as Leiter in the film of Live and Let Die.

The main strength of this film, by far, is the concept that Bond has gone rogue from MI6, and is pursuing a personal vendetta against a brutal drug lord who, early on in the film, orders the slaying of his best friend (the aforementioned Felix Leiter, who has been appearing in Bond films since Doctor No.) Cut off from his normal allies, Bond is forced to infiltrate his enemy's organization and take it down from the inside by manipulating the paranoid villain into killing off "traitors." It's fun to watch Dalton using his brains more than his brawn, and a welcome change from the predictable formula of the Roger Moore era.

This is not to say that Dalton doesn't have his share of physical obstacles to overcome, and the actor seems to have toughened up since The Living Daylights (more on that in a bit.) Dalton certainly saw Bond as a far grittier man that Roger Moore, and he's in top form here as an assassin who is wavering on the edge of burnout as he struggles to get the job done. This more realistic acting style, in point of fact, was a large part of the reason Dalton was not called back for a third entry as Bond (audiences found him grim and humorless), but given the legacy of Roger Moore, it's not surprising that Dalton would want to re-imagine the character on his own terms.

At any rate, License to Kill is a decent entry in the Bond series- though I have to admit that it's far from my favorite. One glaring flaw, in my opinion, is the fact that the villain's headquarters (a drug lab / secret lair disguised as a new-age meditation retreat) literally goes up in flames as the result of a single localized fire. What, the place didn't have a sprinkler system?

So, let's take a brief look at Dalton's first outing: The Living Daylights.

Frankly, I have never been able to make much sense of the plot this film. It starts off simply enough- Bond helps a defecting KGB agent (named Koskov) cross the border between Slovakia and Austria. During his debriefing, General Koskov reveals that the new head of the KGB has issued orders to kill all enemy agents. Then the MI6 safe-house that Koskov is being held in comes under attack by a blond killer posing as a milkman (complete with exploding milk bottles), and Koskov is abducted, presumably by the KGB. Bond is then ordered to kill the head of the KGB in retaliation. Simple, right?

Wrong. What follows is the one of the most convoluted series of twists and reversals I have ever seen in a Bond film. And while it's easy to understand that Koskov's defection and re-abduction were both staged to create tension between East and West, what's less clear is the motivation of the film's villain, a megalomaniac arms dealer (played by Joe Don Baker) who plans to, um, I'm not entirely sure. Late in the game there's talk of stolen Soviet funds being used to purchase opium from Afghanistan, and the climax mostly revolves around Bond trying to blow up a plane full of said opium (and then, later, defuse the same bomb when he becomes trapped onboard,) but by the time we get to that point there's been so many disparate elements introduced that it becomes painfully hard to care about what's going on. The sheer amount of faked assassinations and face turns that have previously occurred have compounded on each other so heavily that the film falls flat on its face.

Though not as boring as, say, Thunderball or The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights is definitely one of the weaker Bond entries- and it doesn't help that it is sometimes hard to take anyone very seriously. While Dalton's attitude is right, there's a distinct feminine anima about the man that undermines the idea of him as an uber-macho, one man wrecking crew. Ah, well.

Tune in next time for contestant number five: Pierce Brosnan!