Licence to Kill (1989)

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Overview

Title Card

With Timothy Dalton playing the hardest edged James Bond yet, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson create the darkest Bond film yet. With his friend Felix Leiter nearly dead Bond goes off the reservation and fights for revenge against Franz Sanchez.

Plot Synopsis

Franz Sanchez

When drug dealer Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) lands in Florida the DEA pick up their agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison) to catch the drug lord before Felix’s wedding, with them comes Felix’s best man James Bond (Timothy Dalton). After punishing his girl friend Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto) Sanchez is caught by Felix allowing Bond and Felix to parachute into the wedding.

Bond and the newly wed Leiters

During the wedding Sanchez is taken to be interriogated by Ed Killifer (Everett McGill). Sanchez offers two million dollars for anyone that will help him escape. Back at the wedding Ed informs Bond and Felix that Sanchez is being moved to prison that day. At the wedding Felix and his bride gives Bond a personalized lighter. Meanwhile Ed helps Sanchez escape during the transport.

That night Bond leaves the newly married couple who are ambushed by Sanchez’s men including Dario (Benicio Del Toro). Sanchez takes Felix to Milton Krest’s (Anthony Zerbe) research center and feeds Felix to Tiger sharks. The next day Bond goes to the airport to leave and finds out that Sanchez escaped the previous day. Racing back to Felix’s home Bond finds Felix’s wife dead and Felix half eaten but alive.

Ed Killifer

At the hospital the DEA tells Bond that Sanchez is gone and took all of Felix’s files in his personal home. With the help of Sharkey (Frank McRae) Bond visits all the aqauriums in town that have large sharks and finds Milton Krest establishment who tell Bond that they sold all of their sharks. That night Bond sneaks into the extablishment looking for more clues he finds Sanchez’s cocaine and finds out that Ed was payed off to help Sanchez escape. Angry, Bond feeds Ed to the sharks as well and throws all the money into the ocean.

Bond capturing the plane

Before chasing down Krest’s yacht Bond is brought to meet M (Robert Brown) and told that his licence to kill has been revoked and that he should stand down since he’s been taking things to personally. Bond escapes under gun fire and leaves with Sharkey. That night on board Krest’s ship Bond finds huge stacks of money and Sanchez’s girlfriend Lupe. With the sun coming up Sanchez’s men kill Sharkey and bring him back to Krest’s yacht. Unable to find Sanchez Bond waits until the money is stored onto a sea plane and the plane off loads cocaine. Under gun fire Bond dumbs the cocaine into the ocean and steals the plane full of money.

The next night Bond enters back into Felix’s private office and finds the last piece of data that Felix was hiding from Sanchez. Accessing the disk Bond finds out the meeting place of Felix’s last living informant Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell). At the bar Bond meets Pam who finds out from Bond that Sanchez has escaped and hunting her down. With the arrival of Dario Bond and Bouvier fight their way out and escape by boat.

Bond and Bouvier

With Bouvier’s help Bond flies down to Isthmus City after Sanchez. Under the guise of a millionaire playboy Bond checks into Sanchez’s hotel and makes a deposit in his bank hoping to gain attention. Meanwhile Sanchez and his accountant Truman-Lodge (Anthony Starke) give a tour of the bank to some Asian investors. While Bond plays blackjack in the casino Sanchez watches a TV fundraiser hosted by Professor Joe Butcher (Wayne Newton) which is actually a front for negotiating cocaine prices. Gaining attention in the casino Bond is brought up to Sanchez’s office where Bond tells Sanchez that he is an assassin and wishes to be hired by Sanchez.

Bond assassinating Sanchez

Returning to his hotel Bond finds Q (Desmond Llewelyn) waiting for him with a sniper kit and other useful gadgets. While meeting with his Asian investors and Kwang (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) Sanchez is unaware that 007 has snuck outside his office window and placed some exposive across his bullet proof window. With the meeting over Bond enters an adjacent building and sets off the explosive and attempts to shoot Sanchez. Before he can get a clean shot however he sees Pam Bouvier giving Sanchez men something. Bond goes ahead with the assassination but is interrupted by a pair of ninja’s who take him to a hut in the forest. There Kwang reveals himself as a Hong Kong Narcotics agent and hands Bond over to a MI6 agent. Before the hand off is made Sanchez’s army bombs the hut killing everyone accept for Bond.

Sanchez's home

Bond wakes up in Sanchez’s home and is asked who those men were. Bond tells him that someone was trying to assissinate Sanchez last night and were expecting to be paid in cash. With the help of Lupe Bond escapes Sanchez’s home and returns to the hotel. Bond confronts Bouvier about her working for Sanchez. Pam reveals that Sanchez had purchased four Stinger missiles and is threatening to shoot down American airliners if the DEA doesn’t back off. Pam was giving a letter of immunity to Heller (Don Stroud), Sanchez’s head of security, if he can safely retrieve the missiles. However with the failed assassination attempt by Bond Heller backed off on the deal making it impossible to get the missiles.

Taking his money out of the bank Bond and Pam sneak aboard Krest’s ship and place the money so that Sanchez can find it. Meanwhile Sanchez interrogates Krest about his missing money and cocaine. Sanchez finds the money Bond placed in Krest’s decompression tank and then places Krest inside killing him. Returning to his room in Sanchez’s house Sanchez returns and wakes Bond up and askes Bond to join him in the tour he is giving the Asian investors.

Sanchez's secret base

The next day Bouvier and Q believe that Bond has already left the country but are informed by Lupe that they are leaving for Sanchez’s secret base. With the help of Q Bouvier follows Bond by airplaine. Leaving seperately Sanchez meets with Dario who brings the Stinger missiles with him. Once at Professor Joes “meditation center” Starke shows Bond and the investors the process in which they are hiding the cocaine within gasoline and transporting it across the border. At the meeting Sanchez shows up with Dario who recognizes Bond and tells Sanchez about the shoot out in Florida. Meanwhile Pam meets with Professor Joe and ties him up to his own bed.

Sanchez fighting Bond

Starting a fire Bond attempts to escape but is instead tossed into a rock shredding machine conveyor belt. While Heller and Starke escape the burning building Sanchez discovers from Bond that it was Heller that betrayed him. As Sanchez kills Heller Pam helps Bond throw Dario into the shredding machine. With Sanchez still in possession of the Stingers Bond chases him down as Pam retrieves her airplane.

Using the lighter Felix and his late wife gave him Bond lights a gas drenched Sanchez on fire and retrieves the remaining Stinger missiles. Back in Sanchez’s home Bond returns to MI6 and continues to have a relationship with Pam instead of Lupe who hooks up the president of Isthmus.

Production

Michael G. Wilson

For the past four films Michael G. Wilson had been the guiding force of the Bond franchise with Albert R. Broccoli only overseeing the projects do to his old age. Along with him Richard Maibaum and John Glen continue to return to the series moving the franchise away from gadgets and making a harder aged Bond especially with the new Bond actor Timothy Dalton. With Dalton’s second outing as the famous character the team decided to take the franchise even darker by making Bond a man on the run.

Dalton and Davi

Both John Glen and Timothy Dalton continued to push for the darker side of James Bond and decided to use a sequence fromm the Ian Fleming novel Live and Let Die that was cut out of the film version, the near death of Felix Leiter. This decision was made to give Bond the motivation he would need to sell the rest of his actions to audiences.

Talisa Soto

At first the production team thought about shooting in China. However since Moonraker the producers felt that the budgets of the films shouldn’t rise any more so the first draft of the script that place in the film in China was scrapped as well as shooting in the country. Instead they redisgned the script to be more like Yojimbo and set it in Mexico City. However with the writers strike of 1989 Maibaum was unable to work on the script leaving Michael G. Wilson writing the script alone.

Carey Lowell

To find the actress to play the part of Lupe Lamora Robert Davi played the part of James Bond for the screen tests of several different women. Davi was asked to do so so that he could help pick out the girl that was to be cast since they would have to have an onscreen connection. The team also decided to bring back David Hedison as Felix Leiter who played the role in Live and Let Die. At first John Glen was nervous that Hedison was too old to play the part but was soon won over by Broccoli and Hedison.

The demon hand

With the cast set the team moved to Mexico City to start filming. The studio’s there were in bad shape mostly do to a recent earthquake. With the Bond team taking over they rebuilt the studio’s and began shooting. In Mexico the team was able to find a perfect mansion for Sanchez in Acapulco and found more than enough road to shoot the finale of the film. Several trucks were built with each having a special ability to pull of during the shooting. However during shooting there were problems every single day. The crew began to believe that the area was cursed. They soon found out that a group of nuns were killed in a bus accident on that very road. At night the crews trucks were found driving themselves and even catching on fire at times. While shooting the last explosion a still photographer captured a hand coming out of the flames. No other camera on set was able to catch the image to confirm it.

Shooting underwater in the Key West

By August the team moves to Key West making the team to rough out the extreme heat of the Florida summer. For the stunt of grabbing the plane during mid flight Dalton was able to convince the team to allow him to do it since the plane was already on the ground. However when Broccoli came to the location he blew his lid and demanded Dalton stop doing the stunt. For the actual mid air stunt Jake Lambard did the stunt.

Reception

In 1989 the filmed recieved internation success but failed to find an audience in America. Audiences didn’t connect with the realism of the film even though critics praised it for taking that risk. Director John Glen is quoted in saying that it was the best Bond film that he did. Amongst Bond fans opinions are mixed with some saying it is the weaker of the series while others believing it is one of the best of the franchise. This usually breaks down between those that like Timothy Dalton as Bond and those who didn’t.