Licence to Kill **** (1989, Timothy Dalton, Robert Davi, Carey Lowell) – Classic Movie Review 413

In his second, and it turned out sadly last, outing as a no-nonsense James Bond after The Living Daylights, Timothy Dalton looks entirely comfortable and settled in the role in the 18th Bond movie from 1989. Dalton staked his claim as the ideal screen embodiment of Ian Fleming’s hard-hitting super-agent. But, somehow, he was never the most popular Bond, though he certainly has a cool charisma.

The brutal-minded screenplay by regular series writer Richard Maibaum and producer Michael G Wilson sees 007 gunning after South American drug baron uber-villain Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) after he leaves Bond’s buddy Felix Leiter (David Hedison) nearly dead. MI6 thinks Sanchez isn’t their problem and strips Bond of his licence to kill.

With the help one of Leiter’s friends, the independently minded Pam Bouvier  (played by Carey Lowell), Bond goes undercover and dangerously sneaks into Sanchez’s drug business.

There follows the usual extravaganza of gadgets, gizmos, guns and gorgeous girls, but with an ultra-tough hero and villain and a no-nonsense heroine in Pam Bouvier. This time Bond seems to have met his match.

With a story like this, and a dark mood and violent atmosphere, the sense of camp fun has entirely disappeared. And in the athletic action and serious acting departments Dalton is certainly light years ahead of the Roger Moore movies. At heart, Dalton plays a serious secret agent, a man you really believe can kill for his country. The formula remains the same as it always was. Maibaum sees to that. But the movie boasts the sharpest, toughest Bond screenplay we’d seen for years.

Anthony Zerbe is an excellent villain as Milton Krest, David Hedison is useful as the CIA man Felix Leiter, while Talisa Soto (as Lupe Lamora), the 22-year-old Benicio del Toro (as Dario) and Don Stroud (as Heller) are assets to the cast. It’s good too that the old team of Desmond Llewelyn, Robert Brown and Caroline Bliss reprise their roles as Q, M and Miss Moneypenny.

Pedro Armendariz Jr (1940 – 2011) plays President Hector Lopez – his father Pedro Armendariz was Kerim Bey in From Russia With Love. Both suffered from terminal cancer.

Dalton looked as though he’d setting in for a long reign as 007, but after this Dalton’s licence to thrill was unfairly revoked, and this became the last Bond for six years till Pierce Brosnan took over for Goldeneye (1995). John  Glen returns as director for his fifth in a row and last Bond movie.

They were going to call it Licence Revoked till an opinion survey showed that most Americans had no idea what ‘Revoked’ means. So Licence to Kill became the first Bond film not to use the title of an Ian Fleming story.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 413

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