Licence To Kill sucked.
It looked like Miami Vice, it sounded like Die Hard, the vehicle stuntwork was out a Smoky & The Bandit flick, the main villain reminded me of a bad guy in The Goonies, the actresses looked like Three's Company sitcom rejects, the wardrobe was recycled wrinkled junk from American Gigolo, and the hair stylist was clearly drunk during the shoot.
What a waste.
Of money.
Why oh why is it my second favourite Bond film? I must be mental. :v
Do you love LTK despite those flaws, or are you just painfully aware of other fans' (unjust) criticisms?
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Licence To Kill sucked.
It looked like Miami Vice, it sounded like Die Hard, the vehicle stuntwork was out a Smoky & The Bandit flick, the main villain reminded me of a bad guy in The Goonies, the actresses looked like Three's Company sitcom rejects, the wardrobe was recycled wrinkled junk from American Gigolo, and the hair stylist was clearly drunk during the shoot.
What a waste.
Of money.
Why oh why is it my second favourite Bond film? I must be mental. :v
Do you love LTK despite those flaws, or are you just painfully aware of other fans' (unjust) criticisms?
I was goofing on the 'perceived' flaws... I have no real problem with the flick at all except perhaps that John Barry didn't get to score it.
Now there I agree with you 100%! JB was sorely missed here.
I really love Kamen's work in general, and specifically on X-Men & Highlander, but just imagine LTK with a Barry score!
Magically, all the "It's like Miami Vice & Die Hard" bs would fade away....
Now there I agree with you 100%! JB was sorely missed here.
I really love Kamen's work in general, and specifically on X-Men & Highlander, but just imagine LTK with a Barry score!
Magically, all the "It's like Miami Vice & Die Hard" bs would fade away....
That's a great point. IMO, Barry doing the TLD score really was very important in introducing a new Bond. Kamen didn't do a bad job with LTK but a Barry score would have pushed it to another level. I don't think we can ever overestimate Barry's contribution to the Bond films.
A Barry score would have made LTK feel more like a Bond film than it did. Although I do like a lot of Kamen's music in the film. Such a departure in tone, especially at that time would have benefited from a more familiar sound for audiences and fans not quite prepared for a change.
Despite my ongoing honesty about my thoughts on the film, I wouldn't want to see it made any differently. As much as I complain about the flaws, it makes the film what it is.
Despite my ongoing honesty about my thoughts on the film, I wouldn't want to see it made any differently. As much as I complain about the flaws, it makes the film what it is.
Totally concur. I'm not a fan of the above revisioned version and I don't think those things that were proposed for changes needed any changing.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
I'm not a fan of the above revisioned version and I don't think those things that were proposed for changes needed any changing.
The wires on the scalpels Bond threw in DAF (which were thankfully removed for the Blu Ray) & the infamous slide whistle (which I dearly wish THEY HAD removed for the Blu Ray) are really the only two things I feel needed changing.
Even the 'light-hearted Felix' gaff... it's part of the movie.
And let's remember, Bond is not Shakespeare (unless Barbel is involved). It's not real-world serious spy stuff. It's simply adventurous pulp fiction with class brought to the big screen. -{
Now there I agree with you 100%! JB was sorely missed here.
I really love Kamen's work in general, and specifically on X-Men & Highlander, but just imagine LTK with a Barry score!
Magically, all the "It's like Miami Vice & Die Hard" bs would fade away....
I was okay with the score...in fact, no, not just okay, I liked it a lot and did not miss the traditional Barry score. I was in great anticipation with a "dangerous," loose cannon Bond in LTK and sitting in the theater on my first viewing that was viscerally delivered with the score, beginning with the gunbarrel and that score carried the "dangerous" loose cannon theme throughout the movie all the way to the climax.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
I'm also okay with Kamen's score. It works well in the film, though the music isn't particularly interesting on its own. It uses the Bond theme when it needs to be there, and the action music provides the excitement the film needs. It's not strange like the GE score and does not detract from the film like the SF and SP scores.
Posting some years ago in a thread about the worst PTSs, I made criticisms of LTK by which I'd still stand... but these criticisms are really the only 'cons' I'd want to point out as far as an overall assessment of LTK's 'pros' vs. 'cons' is concerned:
I love LTK, but its PTS has too many grating moments. To begin with, we have Michael G. Wilson's in-character voiceover for the opening shots, distracting us with nasal tones now familiar as his own (to fans, at least) through all his subsequent contributions to Bond documentaries and DVD commentaries. Then we have David Hedison in bridegroom dress brandishing a heavy gun and running towards the action... in slow motion? He looks past the age of being able to manage a sprint, so the slo-mo effect seems like an unconvincing attempt to disguise that. We also get the whipping of Lupe... censored in most broadcast editions and looking to be exactly what it is, i.e. trimmed down. Then there's Dalton doing his own stunts, but at the price of seeing him flapping his arms like a fledgling pigeon when lowered from the helicopter. The lacklustre, plodding arrangement of the Bond theme during the aerial sequence doesn't help, with its jazz flurry, misconceived for comic effect, at the moment that Sanchez's Cessna is hooked. For the parachute jump, the triumphal note in the incidental score chimes cheesily with the whooping of the parachutists and the wedding crowd. It's all a bit embarrassing but at least a lot of stuff is going on.
I can almost forgive the more embarrassing moments of the PTS for the cute way in which Maurice Binder captures, in the lens of an on-screen camera, the long shot of bridesmaids fussing over the tail ends of the chutes and scampering into the church, as we hear the opening 'Goldfinger' bars of the LTK title track and the credits begin to roll...
Now for the 'pros':
LTK is a great outre Bond film. These days, it's the one I most enjoy rewatching. It's visually amongst the most '80s' of the 80s Bond films, and it's also John Glen's most accomplished and thrilling entry in the series. It's cleverly written: the concept is strong, with Bond as a vengeful infiltrator, seeking to unravel the villain's organisation by setting up or implicating his lackeys as traitors. There may have been budgetary constraints ("I guess it's time to start cutting overhead!"), and there's probably one scene too many set within the confines of the modest Wavekrest interiors, but any charge that this feels like a TV movie is off the mark, certainly after Bond's motive for personal revenge is established as the main driver. Dalton is brilliant, emoting his way compellingly through the whole movie. His performance exudes a well-read appreciation of Fleming, yet it also suits him to a tee to be playing Bond as a rogue agent. The actor's ability to give Bond a wider, more serious emotional range than we'd seen previously is acknowledged by fans, though it should be said, too, that his repertoire includes an entertaining, sometimes overlooked line in 'comedy' facial reactions during light-hearted moments in the action, e.g. when avoiding the sharp end of the swordfish during the 'Tom and Jerry'-style fisticuffs at the Barrelhead Bar, or collision with a rickety old vegetable truck during the climactic petrol tanker chase (a legacy trope of the Roger Moore era).
Sanchez is both charismatic and brutal; the violence associated with him is pleasingly near the knuckle (by Bond film standards, at least). Robert Davi gets to deliver the best Bondian quips in the series other than Bond's own. "Launder it!" always raises a laugh, but the villain's wittiest line is delivered in absentia - and sourced directly from Fleming: "He disagreed with something that ate him." Sanchez is a focal point for several allusions to other movies in crime and gangster genres, adding a certain amount of grit to the proceedings. Think Hans Gruber and the Nakatomi building. Together with the choice of Michael Kamen to do the musical score, and the casting of Grand L. Bush and Davi himself (aka FBI Agents Johnson and Johnson), Sanchez's line, "Thanks for the advice!" is an obvious reference to 'Die Hard', yet that isn't a merely gratuitous reference: in context, the line is integral to the explosive drama of confrontation between Sanchez and Bond. It's true that earlier, when the cop investigating Della's murder mistakenly assumes that Leiter's injuries have been caused by a Colombian chainsaw attack, the passing allusion to 'Scarface' seems a little besides the point; but on the other hand Sanchez is several years ahead of Silvio Dante of 'The Sopranos' in self-consciously relishing his own memorable evocation of 'The Godfather': "I just want you to know, this is nothing personal. It's purely business." If allusions such as these resonate, Sanchez's DNA is essentially that of a classic Bond villain. We think of Connery's Bond attempting to talk his way out of castration by Goldfinger's laser when we see Dalton carried along the conveyor towards the slicing machine, similarly using his wits; as Sanchez snarls, "Do you want this to be hard or easy?/ When you're up to your ankles you'll beg to tell me everything; when you're up to your knees you'll kiss my ass to kill you!" we think of FRWL's Grant: "Don't make this tougher on yourself!/ The first shot won't kill you. Nor will the second, nor the third. Not until you crawl across the floor and kiss my foot!" Mixed into Sanchez's blood is some of the most dangerous villainy of vintage Bond.
Inside Sanchez's organisation, we have a better defined and more interestingly situated range of sub-villains than in any other Bond film except, perhaps, FRWL. From the sleazy Krest to the corrupt Killifer, from gaunt sociopath Dario to the immunity-seeking Heller, from crooked yuppy Truman-Lodge to the two-faced telly evangelist Professor Joe Butcher: these guys crack me up! Even Sharkey's murderer, Clive, is a quirkily sketched minor character... and doesn't the heavy in the grey suit sitting at the bar in the Barrelhead look exactly like FRWL's Krilencu?
Benicio Del Toro almost steals the show as Dario, a character with a lean, menacing physicality who'd have 'pretty boy' appeal were it not for a dangerous hint of heroin chic, the sense that he's had some history of getting high on his own supply. Del Toro has limited screen time in this early role, but has he ever played a more impressive sicario? Meanwhile Wayne Newton as Professor Joe brings with him a whiff of DAF, remembered for its zany excesses: Newton's best known, of course, as a leading entertainer in Las Vegas, and there's a touch of Morton Slumber in the character's phoniness and gaudy tastes (exemplified by the chintzy organ music accompanying his television appearances, and his outrageously hedonistic private meditation chapel-cum-love pad. That Professor Joe amuses Sanchez is consistent with the side of Sanchez that thinks it's funny to put a diamond necklace on a pet iguana.)
LTK's central question, "who can you trust?" is cleverly developed, starting with the scene in which the captured Sanchez names the sum he's willing to pay to anyone springing him from custody. The different reactions of Killifer and Hawkins - particularly the subtleties in Grand L. Bush's performance - set up the audience to suspect that Hawkins is more likely to take the bait, so it's an entertaining reveal when we see that it's actually Killifer who's turned. In the context of the late 80s, this slight play on the audience's expectations possibly has a racial implication; it challenges any assumption that the black character will be the one to sell out, as opposed to the white, square-jawed "old buddy" of Felix. (Aside from Agent Johnson, audiences of action films might have recognised Bush from the year before as violent L.A. gangbanger Larry 'Looney Toons' Sylvester in Dennis Hopper's superb 'Colors'.) Indeed, I'm reminded of the PTS of 1977's TSWLM, which attempts, in a similar way, to push against the gender stereotypes of genre and trick the audience by showing that General Gogol's 'go-to' secret agent isn't, in fact, the handsome, Bond-like Barsov, but the woman beside him in bed, the glamorous Anya Amasova.
Before Sanchez is sprung, the one hint that it's in fact Killifer who's the rotten apple is in Bond's annoyed reaction to the apparently friendly thump on the shoulder which Killifer gives him when they meet in Leiter's study: Bond's first impression of Felix's "old buddy" is clearly that he's gauche, lacking in social graces - typical of a rough-round-the-edges cop, perhaps, but we'll remember Grant/ 'Captain Nash' in FRWL, the "old man" (i.e. "old chap") who should have aroused Bond's suspicions when he committed the socially unforgiveable gaffe of ordering red wine with fish!
If Hawkins comes through as LTK's true spokesperson for American law enforcement, Bond casts aspersions on even his integrity, arguing - dubiously - that the Americans are in thrall to "Sanchez's law" by refusing to countenance a covert retaliation outside U.S. jurisdiction. This resonated at a time when Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar was very much a subject of real-life news media. It would have been clear to audiences in 1989 that Sanchez's character was partly a reflection of Escobar, a charismatic criminal whose violence destabilised his own country and whose drug trafficking was a threat to U.S. interests too. Bond's clash with Hawkins channelled contemporary arguments in the U.S. about whether more direct DEA intervention in Colombia was justified in bringing an end to Escobar and his cartel.
Incidentally, there might have been a problem had LTK's release date in 1989 been set for Christmas rather than the summer blockbuster season, when the movie had more competition for audience share. On November 27, Avianca 203, a Colombian domestic flight, was destroyed by a bomb in an assassination attempt by Escobar on Colombian presidential candidate Cesar Gaviria. In fact, Gaviria was not on the flight but all passengers and crew were killed, including some U.S. citizens. Had LTK been scheduled for release after November, a minor sub-plot of the film might have been considered distasteful in the wake of this real-life atrocity: Sanchez has Stinger missiles because he is threatening to bring down an American airliner unless the DEA lays off him. This unforeseen rub against reality, of sorts, might have required further editing of the film, altering the dialogue between Pam and Bond about Sanchez's Stinger threat; the bombing of Avianca 203 might have been considered too recent for that particular sub-plot of the film to remain intact. As it is, LTK was out in June, so Sanchez's terrorist threat to commercial air travel seems almost, with hindsight, to have been disturbingly prescient, especially since Escobar himself is said to have been a fan of the film.
A welcome link to Bond's past is David Hedison reprising his performance as Leiter, some sixteen years after LALD. Here, Leiter's role is germane to the plot, exploiting hitherto unused business from Fleming's 'Live And Let Die' to good dramatic effect. Despite the character's life-changing injuries and the tragedy of Della's murder, the brief scene at the end of LTK which shows him convalescing, chatting with Bond on the phone, restores some of the lightness of the character as sketched in LALD. Overall, Hedison does justice to Leiter for the character's last innings of the pre-reboot era.
It's worth remembering that avenging Leiter and Della is Bond's principal motivation in LTK, whereas by contrast, in NTTD, the death of Leiter seems almost a sideline, given Bond's vast amount of personal baggage in that film; it's essentially a sub-plot put paid to, mid-movie, by Bond's offing of the otherwise unremarkable Logan Ash (whose preppy double-barrelled name pointlessly channels Truman-Lodge) . Thus Leiter's significance in Bond lore is arguably better respected in LTK than in NTTD, the two Bond films which 'see that some harm comes to him'.
LTK's two women leads contrast well with each other in visual style and character, although it has to be said that Carey Lowell far outclasses Talisa Soto in the acting stakes. La Senorita Bouvier's feisty face-offs with Dario are a highlight, whereas Lupe's response in the PTS to the horrific idea of her illicit lover's fate (the "little Valentine") is relatively flat, to say the least. Lupe's tears later on, when declaring that she loves James "so much", seem unintentionally crocodile - almost laughably so; and indeed Pam mocks her as soon as she's left. My main quibble is that despite Lupe's interesting initial situation as Sanchez's abused girlfriend in need of a way out, she seems just to get shelved at the end, rather glibly palmed off to El Presidente. This is a contrivance perhaps reminiscent of Shakespeare's expedient 'pairing off' of incidental characters as part of the nuptials at the end of his comedies.
Q's role is important: Desmond Llewelyn's presence brings a welcome touch of old-skool, Bond-movie familiarity, particularly around the introduction of the gadgets, which is needed at a point when the rogue Bond is seemingly taking the movie away with him, out on his own. In this context, Q's cliches attain a greater humour than they'd had in recent years: the comic relief is genuine against the generally more serious tone of the film. When Q blathers excuses to Pam, on Bond's behalf, arguing that Bond was justified in bedding Lupe because an operative in the field often needs to use every means at his disposal, the line feels like a throwback to the Roger Moore films: that's why Pam's retort of "Bullshit!" is so funny. (Specifically, Q's reasoning about an agent's fieldwork methods echoes the smirking Moore-Bond's comments to that other ageing roue, Patrick Macnee, when first ogling Stacey Sutton, in AVTAK. It's an attitude in dire need of Pam's style of put-down!) Owing to Llewelyn's advancing years, LTK is really the last time until Ben Whishaw that Q mixes it in the field. For any fans who admire how Whishaw's Q goes out on a limb to supply Bond with unofficial aid it's worth remembering that Llewelyn does so first, in LTK.
Robert Brown gives his last performance as M, benefiting from the absence of cronies Freddy Gray and Anatoly Gogol - each of whom might have turned up in the kind of Bond film we'd conceivably have got had OO7 accepted his Istanbul assignment. The puff of smoke from M's pipe before he turns around to confront Bond on the balcony of Hemingway's house is a classy touch, coming on top of the possibly subversive whiff of Blofeld about him created by the skinny cats in the scene.
The business with the undercover Hong Kong narcotics agents adds intrigue, and there's real pathos when Kwang's and Loti's operation is ruined. By contrast with the OHMSS OO7's rogue assault on Piz Gloria in partnership with Draco, Bond's unlicensed mission against Sanchez leaves meaningful collateral damage - the deaths of Kwang and Loti - compromising his go-it-alone heroism. We feel pity for Loti (Diane Hsu), who sheds tears before making her brave last stand. Ms. Hsu is more than just a model eroticized by Maurice Binder for the credits sequence; she's given a sad, violent death to perform in the story. Also, as a fan of Christopher Neame's TV work during the 70s ('Colditz' and 'Secret Army'), I enjoy seeing Neame turn up briefly here, as the haughty but nervy and ill-fated English agent assigned to 'ship Bond straight back to London'. Neame's first line is delivered out-of-shot, in answer to Kwang's question about who would use a signature gun: "Jems Bawnd." Neame plays the same upper class sort of secret serviceman who's established at the beginning of DN (in the person of the agent arriving at Les Ambassadeurs in search of a Mister Bawnd) as precisely 'NOT-Bond'; stuffily posh; he doesn't survive long enough, either, to develop any of the saving graces of a Saunders (TLD). The darker themes explored in these scenes about Bond's interim foul-up anticipate facets of the Craig era, particularly in QOS; it's easy to argue they're much better written in LTK.
LTK's drugs theme is much to the fore but I've always found it engaging, and not a problem, that the movie is an exploration of 'Bond'-meets-'Miami Vice'. For a perfect visual exemplification of that particular hybrid, look no further than Chez Villa Arabesque in Acapulco, the 'found' location dressed as Sanchez's Isthmus residence. While evoking something of the aesthetic of Michael Mann, the villa could also easily be mistaken for an original Bond design by Peter Lamont. It's here that Sanchez sports his pink shirt, coming his closest to the fashion sense of Sonny Crockett. I think one of the funniest parts of the movie is when Sanchez is incredulously questioning Krest about his story of how the drugs drop-off at sea was sabotaged, the water-ski stunt and the apparently superhuman saboteur throwing the pilots out of the sea-plane. Krest is trying to convince Sanchez that the implausible events of this 'Bond film action sequence' actually happened in the way that they did; that the incident is all, in fact, a part of this movie's 'reality'. Krest's life may depend on convincing Sanchez of the 'truth' of this; we feel for him, to the extent that we ourselves 'witnessed' alongside him the outlandish spectacle at sea. Since Sanchez, as a character, is loosely originating from different, more 'realistic' genres of crime drama - including 'Miami Vice' - he sarcastically dismisses Krest's faltering account of events, suspecting it to be a lame fabrication, "like a little bird!" At this point, Sanchez's own induction to the more fantastic, incredible aspects of 'Bond film action' is still to be completed (if we leave aside the PTS), so his skepticism is understandable. The humour of Sanchez's interrogation of Krest is complicated by Lupe's refusal to back up the hapless drunkard's story; we can't help feeling a tad sorry for Krest. Thus the scene plays in a self-conscious, amusing way on the ironies and contradictions of cross-genre intersection.
LTK's climax doesn't disappoint. The petrol tanker truck chase sequence affords an entertaining finale; it's inventively plotted, executed and performed. One of the many moments I enjoy during this sequence is when Alejandro Bracho gets to do a little physical comedy as Perez, hesitating for a second before scarpering with the other thugs out of the way of Bond's oncoming wheelie, having just missed with the Stinger missile!
I'm sorry that John Barry wasn't available to do the score, but Michael Kamen's music succeeds in supporting the tone and latin stylings of the film. I agree with superado that Kamen impressively sustains an 'in-crisis'/'loose cannon' ambience throughout the score (and incidentally that his fresh take on the fanfare opening of the gunbarrel sequence is an exciting variant).
I saw LTK twice during its original cinema run in 1989. On the first occasion, a matinee in Leicester Square, I was thrilled by the film, and I remember making the effort as a Bond fan just to accept and enjoy the 'rogue agent' change in formula and style. The second time was shortly afterwards in a packed cinema in Amsterdam where - in a way which even then felt charmingly old-fashioned - the screening took an intermission after Bond's and Pam's 'out of gas' tryste. The real excitement of that Amsterdam occasion was in seeing the film uncut: I got to experience how different precious sets of seconds - removed at the insistence of British censors for a commercially appropriate UK certification - made all the difference to the harder edge of the movie when left in place for screenings abroad.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,656MI6 Agent
Well stated, Shady Tree, astute nuggets you've drawn out there!
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
The second time was shortly afterwards in a packed cinema in Amsterdam where - in way which even then felt charmingly old-fashioned - the screening took an intermission after Bond's and Pam's 'out of gas' triste.
It's strange how a single sentence can spark a long lost memory of 40 years ago - I saw GF in Amsterdam in the mid '70's and they had an intermission after Bond crashes the Aston at Goldfinger's factory.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
The second time was shortly afterwards in a packed cinema in Amsterdam where - in way which even then felt charmingly old-fashioned - the screening took an intermission after Bond's and Pam's 'out of gas' triste.
It's strange how a single sentence can spark a long lost memory of 40 years ago - I saw GF in Amsterdam in the mid '70's and they had an intermission after Bond crashes the Aston at Goldfinger's factory.
Glad to have awoken some nostalgia! (I meant "tryst", of course, so have corrected the spelling!)
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
I love Licence To Kill for many reasons, but the main is because of Dalton. Without him, it wouldn't hold up today.
Pros:
- Terrific PTS and theme song by Glady's Knight. Real 80's
- Not a typical run of the mil Bond film. This one really tried to do it's best, with a revenge plot, more violence and a maniacal villain
- Robert Davi and Timothy Dalton and all scenes with them both
- Timothy Dalton IS James Bond, whether he's rogue or on a mission
- All action scenes, particularly the tanker chase, the boat scenes and the scenes at the meditation clinic
- The Timothy Dalton fighting scenes, such as in the bar. Very hilarious.
- Q's bigger role in the film (of course). Q never had anything bad to say about Dalton's character as Bond while on screen.
- Ninjas
- "Switch the blo*dy machine off!" "When you're up to your knees, you would have begged to tell me everything. When you're up to your knees, you'll kiss my a*s to kill you"
Cons:
- I didn't like Lowell or Sato that much in comparison with earlier girls of the 80's
- The ending is horrible, and really put my ranking down. It would have been nice for a celebration, or for M to appear. It just felt as though Bonds efforts were badly wasted.
- Poor locations
- The fact that Sanchez does not know he's pitted against Bond until near the end, and his main plan is nothing we haven't seen before.
Overall, I would probably give it somewhere between an 8 and a 9. Closer to a 9 because of everything that was great about it.
- The Timothy Dalton fighting scenes, such as in the bar. Very hilarious.
While I love the humour of the bar scene (one of the few scenes in all Bond where I actually laugh out loud) - it highlights the uneven tone of the film between the first half and the second half.
In the obtuse opinion thread I called out that LTK IMO is the funniest Bond film. There are some pretty overt humour which make it all the more 80s. The blend of that and low budget exacerbates the Miami Vice movie and a Steven Segal B-grade action/revenge/comedy flick that it should avoid.
Comments
Do you love LTK despite those flaws, or are you just painfully aware of other fans' (unjust) criticisms?
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Nothing unjust about them mate. They're still worthy criticisms.
"Better make that two."
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Magically, all the "It's like Miami Vice & Die Hard" bs would fade away....
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
That's a great point. IMO, Barry doing the TLD score really was very important in introducing a new Bond. Kamen didn't do a bad job with LTK but a Barry score would have pushed it to another level. I don't think we can ever overestimate Barry's contribution to the Bond films.
I would see that movie in a heartbeat. Providing this is good U2 and not 2016 U2.
"Better make that two."
Totally concur. I'm not a fan of the above revisioned version and I don't think those things that were proposed for changes needed any changing.
Even the 'light-hearted Felix' gaff... it's part of the movie.
And let's remember, Bond is not Shakespeare (unless Barbel is involved). It's not real-world serious spy stuff. It's simply adventurous pulp fiction with class brought to the big screen. -{
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
I was okay with the score...in fact, no, not just okay, I liked it a lot and did not miss the traditional Barry score. I was in great anticipation with a "dangerous," loose cannon Bond in LTK and sitting in the theater on my first viewing that was viscerally delivered with the score, beginning with the gunbarrel and that score carried the "dangerous" loose cannon theme throughout the movie all the way to the climax.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Posting some years ago in a thread about the worst PTSs, I made criticisms of LTK by which I'd still stand... but these criticisms are really the only 'cons' I'd want to point out as far as an overall assessment of LTK's 'pros' vs. 'cons' is concerned:
I love LTK, but its PTS has too many grating moments. To begin with, we have Michael G. Wilson's in-character voiceover for the opening shots, distracting us with nasal tones now familiar as his own (to fans, at least) through all his subsequent contributions to Bond documentaries and DVD commentaries. Then we have David Hedison in bridegroom dress brandishing a heavy gun and running towards the action... in slow motion? He looks past the age of being able to manage a sprint, so the slo-mo effect seems like an unconvincing attempt to disguise that. We also get the whipping of Lupe... censored in most broadcast editions and looking to be exactly what it is, i.e. trimmed down. Then there's Dalton doing his own stunts, but at the price of seeing him flapping his arms like a fledgling pigeon when lowered from the helicopter. The lacklustre, plodding arrangement of the Bond theme during the aerial sequence doesn't help, with its jazz flurry, misconceived for comic effect, at the moment that Sanchez's Cessna is hooked. For the parachute jump, the triumphal note in the incidental score chimes cheesily with the whooping of the parachutists and the wedding crowd. It's all a bit embarrassing but at least a lot of stuff is going on.
I can almost forgive the more embarrassing moments of the PTS for the cute way in which Maurice Binder captures, in the lens of an on-screen camera, the long shot of bridesmaids fussing over the tail ends of the chutes and scampering into the church, as we hear the opening 'Goldfinger' bars of the LTK title track and the credits begin to roll...
Now for the 'pros':
LTK is a great outre Bond film. These days, it's the one I most enjoy rewatching. It's visually amongst the most '80s' of the 80s Bond films, and it's also John Glen's most accomplished and thrilling entry in the series. It's cleverly written: the concept is strong, with Bond as a vengeful infiltrator, seeking to unravel the villain's organisation by setting up or implicating his lackeys as traitors. There may have been budgetary constraints ("I guess it's time to start cutting overhead!"), and there's probably one scene too many set within the confines of the modest Wavekrest interiors, but any charge that this feels like a TV movie is off the mark, certainly after Bond's motive for personal revenge is established as the main driver. Dalton is brilliant, emoting his way compellingly through the whole movie. His performance exudes a well-read appreciation of Fleming, yet it also suits him to a tee to be playing Bond as a rogue agent. The actor's ability to give Bond a wider, more serious emotional range than we'd seen previously is acknowledged by fans, though it should be said, too, that his repertoire includes an entertaining, sometimes overlooked line in 'comedy' facial reactions during light-hearted moments in the action, e.g. when avoiding the sharp end of the swordfish during the 'Tom and Jerry'-style fisticuffs at the Barrelhead Bar, or collision with a rickety old vegetable truck during the climactic petrol tanker chase (a legacy trope of the Roger Moore era).
Sanchez is both charismatic and brutal; the violence associated with him is pleasingly near the knuckle (by Bond film standards, at least). Robert Davi gets to deliver the best Bondian quips in the series other than Bond's own. "Launder it!" always raises a laugh, but the villain's wittiest line is delivered in absentia - and sourced directly from Fleming: "He disagreed with something that ate him." Sanchez is a focal point for several allusions to other movies in crime and gangster genres, adding a certain amount of grit to the proceedings. Think Hans Gruber and the Nakatomi building. Together with the choice of Michael Kamen to do the musical score, and the casting of Grand L. Bush and Davi himself (aka FBI Agents Johnson and Johnson), Sanchez's line, "Thanks for the advice!" is an obvious reference to 'Die Hard', yet that isn't a merely gratuitous reference: in context, the line is integral to the explosive drama of confrontation between Sanchez and Bond. It's true that earlier, when the cop investigating Della's murder mistakenly assumes that Leiter's injuries have been caused by a Colombian chainsaw attack, the passing allusion to 'Scarface' seems a little besides the point; but on the other hand Sanchez is several years ahead of Silvio Dante of 'The Sopranos' in self-consciously relishing his own memorable evocation of 'The Godfather': "I just want you to know, this is nothing personal. It's purely business." If allusions such as these resonate, Sanchez's DNA is essentially that of a classic Bond villain. We think of Connery's Bond attempting to talk his way out of castration by Goldfinger's laser when we see Dalton carried along the conveyor towards the slicing machine, similarly using his wits; as Sanchez snarls, "Do you want this to be hard or easy?/ When you're up to your ankles you'll beg to tell me everything; when you're up to your knees you'll kiss my ass to kill you!" we think of FRWL's Grant: "Don't make this tougher on yourself!/ The first shot won't kill you. Nor will the second, nor the third. Not until you crawl across the floor and kiss my foot!" Mixed into Sanchez's blood is some of the most dangerous villainy of vintage Bond.
Inside Sanchez's organisation, we have a better defined and more interestingly situated range of sub-villains than in any other Bond film except, perhaps, FRWL. From the sleazy Krest to the corrupt Killifer, from gaunt sociopath Dario to the immunity-seeking Heller, from crooked yuppy Truman-Lodge to the two-faced telly evangelist Professor Joe Butcher: these guys crack me up! Even Sharkey's murderer, Clive, is a quirkily sketched minor character... and doesn't the heavy in the grey suit sitting at the bar in the Barrelhead look exactly like FRWL's Krilencu?
Benicio Del Toro almost steals the show as Dario, a character with a lean, menacing physicality who'd have 'pretty boy' appeal were it not for a dangerous hint of heroin chic, the sense that he's had some history of getting high on his own supply. Del Toro has limited screen time in this early role, but has he ever played a more impressive sicario? Meanwhile Wayne Newton as Professor Joe brings with him a whiff of DAF, remembered for its zany excesses: Newton's best known, of course, as a leading entertainer in Las Vegas, and there's a touch of Morton Slumber in the character's phoniness and gaudy tastes (exemplified by the chintzy organ music accompanying his television appearances, and his outrageously hedonistic private meditation chapel-cum-love pad. That Professor Joe amuses Sanchez is consistent with the side of Sanchez that thinks it's funny to put a diamond necklace on a pet iguana.)
LTK's central question, "who can you trust?" is cleverly developed, starting with the scene in which the captured Sanchez names the sum he's willing to pay to anyone springing him from custody. The different reactions of Killifer and Hawkins - particularly the subtleties in Grand L. Bush's performance - set up the audience to suspect that Hawkins is more likely to take the bait, so it's an entertaining reveal when we see that it's actually Killifer who's turned. In the context of the late 80s, this slight play on the audience's expectations possibly has a racial implication; it challenges any assumption that the black character will be the one to sell out, as opposed to the white, square-jawed "old buddy" of Felix. (Aside from Agent Johnson, audiences of action films might have recognised Bush from the year before as violent L.A. gangbanger Larry 'Looney Toons' Sylvester in Dennis Hopper's superb 'Colors'.) Indeed, I'm reminded of the PTS of 1977's TSWLM, which attempts, in a similar way, to push against the gender stereotypes of genre and trick the audience by showing that General Gogol's 'go-to' secret agent isn't, in fact, the handsome, Bond-like Barsov, but the woman beside him in bed, the glamorous Anya Amasova.
Before Sanchez is sprung, the one hint that it's in fact Killifer who's the rotten apple is in Bond's annoyed reaction to the apparently friendly thump on the shoulder which Killifer gives him when they meet in Leiter's study: Bond's first impression of Felix's "old buddy" is clearly that he's gauche, lacking in social graces - typical of a rough-round-the-edges cop, perhaps, but we'll remember Grant/ 'Captain Nash' in FRWL, the "old man" (i.e. "old chap") who should have aroused Bond's suspicions when he committed the socially unforgiveable gaffe of ordering red wine with fish!
If Hawkins comes through as LTK's true spokesperson for American law enforcement, Bond casts aspersions on even his integrity, arguing - dubiously - that the Americans are in thrall to "Sanchez's law" by refusing to countenance a covert retaliation outside U.S. jurisdiction. This resonated at a time when Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar was very much a subject of real-life news media. It would have been clear to audiences in 1989 that Sanchez's character was partly a reflection of Escobar, a charismatic criminal whose violence destabilised his own country and whose drug trafficking was a threat to U.S. interests too. Bond's clash with Hawkins channelled contemporary arguments in the U.S. about whether more direct DEA intervention in Colombia was justified in bringing an end to Escobar and his cartel.
Incidentally, there might have been a problem had LTK's release date in 1989 been set for Christmas rather than the summer blockbuster season, when the movie had more competition for audience share. On November 27, Avianca 203, a Colombian domestic flight, was destroyed by a bomb in an assassination attempt by Escobar on Colombian presidential candidate Cesar Gaviria. In fact, Gaviria was not on the flight but all passengers and crew were killed, including some U.S. citizens. Had LTK been scheduled for release after November, a minor sub-plot of the film might have been considered distasteful in the wake of this real-life atrocity: Sanchez has Stinger missiles because he is threatening to bring down an American airliner unless the DEA lays off him. This unforeseen rub against reality, of sorts, might have required further editing of the film, altering the dialogue between Pam and Bond about Sanchez's Stinger threat; the bombing of Avianca 203 might have been considered too recent for that particular sub-plot of the film to remain intact. As it is, LTK was out in June, so Sanchez's terrorist threat to commercial air travel seems almost, with hindsight, to have been disturbingly prescient, especially since Escobar himself is said to have been a fan of the film.
A welcome link to Bond's past is David Hedison reprising his performance as Leiter, some sixteen years after LALD. Here, Leiter's role is germane to the plot, exploiting hitherto unused business from Fleming's 'Live And Let Die' to good dramatic effect. Despite the character's life-changing injuries and the tragedy of Della's murder, the brief scene at the end of LTK which shows him convalescing, chatting with Bond on the phone, restores some of the lightness of the character as sketched in LALD. Overall, Hedison does justice to Leiter for the character's last innings of the pre-reboot era.
It's worth remembering that avenging Leiter and Della is Bond's principal motivation in LTK, whereas by contrast, in NTTD, the death of Leiter seems almost a sideline, given Bond's vast amount of personal baggage in that film; it's essentially a sub-plot put paid to, mid-movie, by Bond's offing of the otherwise unremarkable Logan Ash (whose preppy double-barrelled name pointlessly channels Truman-Lodge) . Thus Leiter's significance in Bond lore is arguably better respected in LTK than in NTTD, the two Bond films which 'see that some harm comes to him'.
LTK's two women leads contrast well with each other in visual style and character, although it has to be said that Carey Lowell far outclasses Talisa Soto in the acting stakes. La Senorita Bouvier's feisty face-offs with Dario are a highlight, whereas Lupe's response in the PTS to the horrific idea of her illicit lover's fate (the "little Valentine") is relatively flat, to say the least. Lupe's tears later on, when declaring that she loves James "so much", seem unintentionally crocodile - almost laughably so; and indeed Pam mocks her as soon as she's left. My main quibble is that despite Lupe's interesting initial situation as Sanchez's abused girlfriend in need of a way out, she seems just to get shelved at the end, rather glibly palmed off to El Presidente. This is a contrivance perhaps reminiscent of Shakespeare's expedient 'pairing off' of incidental characters as part of the nuptials at the end of his comedies.
Q's role is important: Desmond Llewelyn's presence brings a welcome touch of old-skool, Bond-movie familiarity, particularly around the introduction of the gadgets, which is needed at a point when the rogue Bond is seemingly taking the movie away with him, out on his own. In this context, Q's cliches attain a greater humour than they'd had in recent years: the comic relief is genuine against the generally more serious tone of the film. When Q blathers excuses to Pam, on Bond's behalf, arguing that Bond was justified in bedding Lupe because an operative in the field often needs to use every means at his disposal, the line feels like a throwback to the Roger Moore films: that's why Pam's retort of "Bullshit!" is so funny. (Specifically, Q's reasoning about an agent's fieldwork methods echoes the smirking Moore-Bond's comments to that other ageing roue, Patrick Macnee, when first ogling Stacey Sutton, in AVTAK. It's an attitude in dire need of Pam's style of put-down!) Owing to Llewelyn's advancing years, LTK is really the last time until Ben Whishaw that Q mixes it in the field. For any fans who admire how Whishaw's Q goes out on a limb to supply Bond with unofficial aid it's worth remembering that Llewelyn does so first, in LTK.
Robert Brown gives his last performance as M, benefiting from the absence of cronies Freddy Gray and Anatoly Gogol - each of whom might have turned up in the kind of Bond film we'd conceivably have got had OO7 accepted his Istanbul assignment. The puff of smoke from M's pipe before he turns around to confront Bond on the balcony of Hemingway's house is a classy touch, coming on top of the possibly subversive whiff of Blofeld about him created by the skinny cats in the scene.
The business with the undercover Hong Kong narcotics agents adds intrigue, and there's real pathos when Kwang's and Loti's operation is ruined. By contrast with the OHMSS OO7's rogue assault on Piz Gloria in partnership with Draco, Bond's unlicensed mission against Sanchez leaves meaningful collateral damage - the deaths of Kwang and Loti - compromising his go-it-alone heroism. We feel pity for Loti (Diane Hsu), who sheds tears before making her brave last stand. Ms. Hsu is more than just a model eroticized by Maurice Binder for the credits sequence; she's given a sad, violent death to perform in the story. Also, as a fan of Christopher Neame's TV work during the 70s ('Colditz' and 'Secret Army'), I enjoy seeing Neame turn up briefly here, as the haughty but nervy and ill-fated English agent assigned to 'ship Bond straight back to London'. Neame's first line is delivered out-of-shot, in answer to Kwang's question about who would use a signature gun: "Jems Bawnd." Neame plays the same upper class sort of secret serviceman who's established at the beginning of DN (in the person of the agent arriving at Les Ambassadeurs in search of a Mister Bawnd) as precisely 'NOT-Bond'; stuffily posh; he doesn't survive long enough, either, to develop any of the saving graces of a Saunders (TLD). The darker themes explored in these scenes about Bond's interim foul-up anticipate facets of the Craig era, particularly in QOS; it's easy to argue they're much better written in LTK.
LTK's drugs theme is much to the fore but I've always found it engaging, and not a problem, that the movie is an exploration of 'Bond'-meets-'Miami Vice'. For a perfect visual exemplification of that particular hybrid, look no further than Chez Villa Arabesque in Acapulco, the 'found' location dressed as Sanchez's Isthmus residence. While evoking something of the aesthetic of Michael Mann, the villa could also easily be mistaken for an original Bond design by Peter Lamont. It's here that Sanchez sports his pink shirt, coming his closest to the fashion sense of Sonny Crockett. I think one of the funniest parts of the movie is when Sanchez is incredulously questioning Krest about his story of how the drugs drop-off at sea was sabotaged, the water-ski stunt and the apparently superhuman saboteur throwing the pilots out of the sea-plane. Krest is trying to convince Sanchez that the implausible events of this 'Bond film action sequence' actually happened in the way that they did; that the incident is all, in fact, a part of this movie's 'reality'. Krest's life may depend on convincing Sanchez of the 'truth' of this; we feel for him, to the extent that we ourselves 'witnessed' alongside him the outlandish spectacle at sea. Since Sanchez, as a character, is loosely originating from different, more 'realistic' genres of crime drama - including 'Miami Vice' - he sarcastically dismisses Krest's faltering account of events, suspecting it to be a lame fabrication, "like a little bird!" At this point, Sanchez's own induction to the more fantastic, incredible aspects of 'Bond film action' is still to be completed (if we leave aside the PTS), so his skepticism is understandable. The humour of Sanchez's interrogation of Krest is complicated by Lupe's refusal to back up the hapless drunkard's story; we can't help feeling a tad sorry for Krest. Thus the scene plays in a self-conscious, amusing way on the ironies and contradictions of cross-genre intersection.
LTK's climax doesn't disappoint. The petrol tanker truck chase sequence affords an entertaining finale; it's inventively plotted, executed and performed. One of the many moments I enjoy during this sequence is when Alejandro Bracho gets to do a little physical comedy as Perez, hesitating for a second before scarpering with the other thugs out of the way of Bond's oncoming wheelie, having just missed with the Stinger missile!
I'm sorry that John Barry wasn't available to do the score, but Michael Kamen's music succeeds in supporting the tone and latin stylings of the film. I agree with superado that Kamen impressively sustains an 'in-crisis'/'loose cannon' ambience throughout the score (and incidentally that his fresh take on the fanfare opening of the gunbarrel sequence is an exciting variant).
I saw LTK twice during its original cinema run in 1989. On the first occasion, a matinee in Leicester Square, I was thrilled by the film, and I remember making the effort as a Bond fan just to accept and enjoy the 'rogue agent' change in formula and style. The second time was shortly afterwards in a packed cinema in Amsterdam where - in a way which even then felt charmingly old-fashioned - the screening took an intermission after Bond's and Pam's 'out of gas' tryste. The real excitement of that Amsterdam occasion was in seeing the film uncut: I got to experience how different precious sets of seconds - removed at the insistence of British censors for a commercially appropriate UK certification - made all the difference to the harder edge of the movie when left in place for screenings abroad.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Thanks, guys. (I've slightly added to my post now.)
As we don't see it that often
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
It's strange how a single sentence can spark a long lost memory of 40 years ago - I saw GF in Amsterdam in the mid '70's and they had an intermission after Bond crashes the Aston at Goldfinger's factory.
Glad to have awoken some nostalgia! (I meant "tryst", of course, so have corrected the spelling!)
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Update: This was a good screening, in an uncut edition, attended by a quietly appreciative audience laughing in the right places.
Pros:
- Terrific PTS and theme song by Glady's Knight. Real 80's
- Not a typical run of the mil Bond film. This one really tried to do it's best, with a revenge plot, more violence and a maniacal villain
- Robert Davi and Timothy Dalton and all scenes with them both
- Timothy Dalton IS James Bond, whether he's rogue or on a mission
- All action scenes, particularly the tanker chase, the boat scenes and the scenes at the meditation clinic
- The Timothy Dalton fighting scenes, such as in the bar. Very hilarious.
- Q's bigger role in the film (of course). Q never had anything bad to say about Dalton's character as Bond while on screen.
- Ninjas
- "Switch the blo*dy machine off!" "When you're up to your knees, you would have begged to tell me everything. When you're up to your knees, you'll kiss my a*s to kill you"
Cons:
- I didn't like Lowell or Sato that much in comparison with earlier girls of the 80's
- The ending is horrible, and really put my ranking down. It would have been nice for a celebration, or for M to appear. It just felt as though Bonds efforts were badly wasted.
- Poor locations
- The fact that Sanchez does not know he's pitted against Bond until near the end, and his main plan is nothing we haven't seen before.
Overall, I would probably give it somewhere between an 8 and a 9. Closer to a 9 because of everything that was great about it.
1. Dalton 2. Moore 3. Connery 4. Lazenby 5. Craig 6. Brosnan
While I love the humour of the bar scene (one of the few scenes in all Bond where I actually laugh out loud) - it highlights the uneven tone of the film between the first half and the second half.
In the obtuse opinion thread I called out that LTK IMO is the funniest Bond film. There are some pretty overt humour which make it all the more 80s. The blend of that and low budget exacerbates the Miami Vice movie and a Steven Segal B-grade action/revenge/comedy flick that it should avoid.
"Better make that two."