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[Revelator]

The online film magazine Bright Lights Film Journal occasionally runs pieces on the Bond films. The latest issue features a short analysis of LTK. The the article is glibly Marxist but not without moments of insight. It can be found here, and I've also reproduced it below. Enjoy.

Licence to Kill (1989)
The Last James Bond Movie
Don't worry or question; just consume — oh, and kill

James Bond doesn't need to show us the "way we live now." This isn't Le Carre or Buchan or the great Geoffrey Household. Bond's role is as a simulacrum permitting us to rationalize anxieties bred by the commodity fetish in others and ourselves. The books, and much more the movies, show us how to worship at the altar of the good life and repress all our doubts and fears, as good citizens of any empire should. Bond allows us to hunger after the life of plenty, of good taste, and use it to build a psychological carapace over our dread and alienation at the ravages of the wages system in the most socially useful way possible: we consume.

007 consumes women, sunshine, very undirty martinis, fine furnishings, splendid cars. He visits the very heavens of this world: Alps, Dolomites, Aegean, Orient, Bahamas. His job, the thing that hands him upper-class consumer culture on a silver platter, is simple enough. Each day he cocks a snook at his hopelessly serious boss; from time to time he deflects a steel-brimmed bowler hat or blows up a blimp. Once he went into space, but it was only to deliver a punch line to his plutocratic enemy Hugo Drax.

For all the stolen software, space shuttles, a-bombs, and decoding machines, the world of Bond has as much in common with that of Sherlock Holmes, Richard Hannay, and Nayland Smith as it does with the Cold War. Too much contemporary George Smileying and the Bond films would blow apart like veils of gossamer.

The authentic Bondian world could not survive the spread of global consumer culture, as imperialism draws vast populations into cities and proletarianizes hundreds of millions. Today we all have more charming car and pocket gadgets than Q could dream of. Fast fortunes and McMansions rise and fall as we go bankrupt, regroup, and wait for the next deflation.

Licence to Kill (1989) was the last Cold War-era Bond movie. But it doesn't even pay lip service to Russia, Europe, or any of Bond's old hunting grounds. This movie looks forward to the villains ordained by the first Bush regime: demonizing drugs and Manuel Noriega. (The villain drug emperor Sanchez lives in a country called Isthmus, and runs it behind the scenes. When President Lopez confronts him about a reduced paycheck, Sanchez raises a Grinch-like eyebrow and tells him: "Remember, you're only president for life.")

It also proposes a Cuban connection in the drug trade; a month after the film's release, the Cuban government executed General Arnoldo Ochoa for drug trafficking. The whole south Florida and Central American milieu of Licence to Kill is steeped in the double-dealing criminality opened by Washington's proxy counterrevolutionary war to topple the FSLN government in Nicaragua. The contra war was only the most recent imperialist pro-drug war; a previous one was called The Opium War; so may be the next one.

Sanchez, played by the fine actor Robert Davi, is not a maniacal Blofeld-style supervillain. He does not want to irradiate Fort Knox or provoke World War III or sink California into the Pacific. All he wants is market expansion into the Orient; he revenges himself against the DEA, Felix Leiter, and Leiter's new bride Della so as not to lose face with prospective partners.

There are no puzzles or mysteries for Bond to solve in Licence to Kill. Here he is rejuvenating the self-righteous monomaniac vigilantism of Dirty Harry or Death Wish or Rambo III. Bond's rampage flows not from his friendship for Leiter, but from the murder of Leiter's wife. For Bond, it is the second murder of his own wife. Early scenes of Bond and Della in the movie make it clear that Bond loves Della at least as much as her bridegroom does. When Bond begins his mission of revenge, there is a palpable coldness in his eyes: he knows he has gone beyond anything professional or ethical.

Licence to Kill has the usual yachts and scuba battles. But there are also characters like Professor Joe Butcher, played by singer Wayne Newton. While he has only a few minutes of screen time, Newton turns Butcher into the acme of all seedy, hilariously crooked late-1980s televangelists. When Butcher is ripping off, or being ripped off, he says "Bless your heart" as though marveling at the glory of his own crapulence.

We might call Licence to Kill James Bond vs. Scarface. At one point in the film Sanchez tells a business partner "It's not personal, it's business." This echoes the mantra of both Scarface and The Untouchables.

Production designer Peter Lamont gives Sanchez's drug factory (hidden beneath a Mexican pyramid) a high-industrial aluminum cleanliness; it looks more like a pharmaceutical or computer plant than a meth lab. This is the law of value at its most exotic. Sanchez hides his drugs for transport by dissolving them into the holiest of holies: gasoline. They are safely reconstituted at the other end of the pipeline provided his partners in other countries buy rights to the formula. Above all else, intellectual copyright must be upheld.

Licence to Kill wraps contemporary headlines around the bourgeois fantasy of the revenge-filled killing spree. The glee with which Bond destroys a fortune in drugs being shipped in a mini-sub, and later throws two men out of an airplane he needs for escape, captures many viewers in their emotional backflow. Revenge is a normal category of activity in our ruling class, and between individual capitalists. We become intoxicated by its much-advertised charms, too. Righteous revenge features in the plots of most thriller novels and movies, which are the dominant genre today. Many dream of "sticking it" to their "enemies" and competitors. Movies permit us to train our imaginations that way. The problems we face require not collective action in our unions and mass organizations, but a decompression chamber or a stinger missile.

This was not the last James Bond movie, but it certainly feels that way. Six years would pass before the release of Golden Eye in 1995. The measured tempo and four-square mise-en-scene of Licence to Kill are a pleasure, as are the performances. Timothy Dalton in particular achieves an almost constant agonized stillness, simply poised and waiting within his body. It is an impeccable turn by a versatile actor. Politically, Licence to Kill is another in a long series of anti-political un-political political films. A particular capitalist enterprise makes a movie depicting some specific crimes and misdemeanors of specific capitalists, companies, countries, or industries that demonstrably must be "cleaned up." Nothing systemic, you see. Criminal activity in the business world is abnormal, you see. Decisive individual action, not collective class action, rectifies all, you see. Thus are we safe and satisfied to remain at home, purchasing and consuming until the next sequel.

[The Shark]

The problems we face require not collective action in our unions and mass organizations, but a decompression chamber or a stinger missile.

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly.

Very interesting find.

[ChristopherZ22]

This was not the last James Bond movie, but it certainly feels that way.

One of the strangest and most inaccurate things I have ever read about a Bond movie. Even if I was a Dalton fan and liked his films, I still would never say such a thing. I sure hope this was meant to be a joke.

Other than perhaps the underwater fight and the casino scenes, Licence To Kill has no resemblance to a Bond movie. It has more in common with many low budget films (Bronson/Norris/late night cable movies) and some higher budgeted films(Lethal Weapon) of the time. It is done in a very similar style and even story as a Death Wish movie(hero, or maybe anti-hero, goes against the law and becomes a vigilante to avenge the death of a friend). It is pretty much James Bond's answer to a Death Wish film. Just take out Dalton and the James Bond character, replace him with Charles Bronson playing Paul Kersey, and you have a Death Wish sequel.

Licence To Kill feels too American, low budget, and sleazy to feel like a Bond movie.

[sthgilyadgnivileht]

Its an interesting and thought provoking review, and isn't all that typical.

It has a presumption the film is, or is going to be, good. I always feel most LTK review's start with a presumption the film is, or is going to be, bad. They then either agree its bad or list their reasons that raise it from that premise.

I don't find LTK top-drawer Bond but it's a quality film, with a good story, that never cheats on its audience that's for sure.

I never felt LTK was going to be the last Bond. After all, the end credits said James Bond would return....

[jaguar007]

This was not the last James Bond movie, but it certainly feels that way.

One of the strangest and most inaccurate things I have ever read about a Bond movie. Even if I was a Dalton fan and liked his films, I still would never say such a thing. I sure hope this was meant to be a joke.

Well it was the last Bond film with the original era production team, so I can see how some people would consider it the last Bond film of the original series before the start of the modern era with the Brosnan films. The last film Broccoli was an active producer, the last wit Maibaum, Binder etc.

[darthbond]

In many ways, it was the passing of an era. I was just about to start a thread talking about the most unappreciated parts or movies of the series. For me, it is Licence to Kill. I agree with this sentiment, although I wouldn't say it is the last true Bond movie.

drthbond

[Mr_Wint]

I have never felt that LTK belongs to an era. It started something new, and ended it right away. When the experiment failed they gave up and created this Hollywood version of Bond.

[Guy Haines]

The problems we face require not collective action in our unions and mass organizations, but a decompression chamber or a stinger missile.

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly.

Very interesting find.

Yes it is. At the time it seemed obvious, to this fan at least, that sooner or later 007 would have the Latin American drug cartels in his sights. Not because the film makers had to jump on the Lethal Weapon band wagon, but because in the real world that serves as a sometimes very loose background for Bond, the cartels were the real Bond villains.

[Revelator]

For me LTK is very much the last Bond movie...of the original series. The Brosnan films would thus be the "second" Bond series, the occasion of the first reboot. This is because, as Jaguar007 the last Bond movie to combine so many members of the original team. And, as the writer of the article notes, the film is the last to carry the "the measured tempo and four-square mise-en-scene" of the Bond films that preceded it. We're a long way from Bourne-world here.

Some have claimed it is hardly a Bond movie at all, due to the Miami Vice or Death Wish angle or what have you. But these are more evidence of Bond moving with the times and setting himself against them, rather than staying within the confines set by the earlier Bond films, especially since what many people consider a Bond movie is really an inbred Bond movie--a Bond movie that resembles all the other Bond movies, a pastiche, much like the Brosnan films. Within tropes borrowed from American action films, LTK stages a very Fleming-like ethos derived from LALD and TMWTGG (in many ways it improved on the latter).

Plus, as the writer of this article notes, the movie "looks forward to the villains ordained by the first Bush regime: demonizing drugs and Manuel Noriega... The whole south Florida and Central American milieu of Licence to Kill is steeped in the double-dealing criminality opened by Washington's proxy counterrevolutionary war to topple the FSLN government in Nicaragua." Hence the missile deal Bond disrupts, along with the assassination attempt on Sanchez. LTK could have simply stayed in Florida if it wanted to ape Miami Vice. By going to central America, it moves deeper into what were the headlines of the day.

The writer's other startling observation, which no one seems to have discussed is that Bond's revenge is so intense because he was in love with Della too. And so he relives her murder as Tracy's. Leiter himself is pushed out in this equation--Bond's rampage is really on behalf of Della. You may or may not agree with this, but through this light Della and Bond kissing on the lips suddenly becomes very explainable...

[Mr. Arlington Beech]

This was not the last James Bond movie, but it certainly feels that way.

Licence To Kill feels too American, low budget, and sleazy to feel like a Bond movie.

Totally agree. LTK, imo, is the most tacky Bond movie in the history of the EON series!!

[ChristopherZ22]

I echo the feeling; for me LTK was also the last Bond movie for a long time to contain all the elements that made me a fan of the series in the first place: great locations, intelligent action sequences and an actual plot. IMHO, it took almost 17 years for the series to come close to the level of LTK again.

I am not sure if I agree with your "actual plot" comment. The plot is too simple to be sustained for over two hours. The result is a lot of tediousness in the middle act. All the scenes in Isthmus City felt tedious and boring.

I also felt the subplot involving the stingers, and Pam making some deal between Leiter, the DEA, and Heller was unnecessary and nothing more than time filler; it seemed like an excuse to get the film up to two hours or more.

Edited by ChristopherZ22, 28 February 2010 - 05:49 AM.

[Dell Deaton]

Its an interesting and thought provoking review, and isn't all that typical.

It has a presumption the film is, or is going to be, good. I always feel most LTK review's start with a presumption the film is, or is going to be, bad. They then either agree its bad or list their reasons that raise it from that premise....

Agreed. And I'll go a step further.

There seems to be a growing trend since the advent of Casino Royale in 2006 that previous Bonds must be invalidated in order for subsequent, or "preferred" Bonds to be accepted, let alone praised. It's as if we can't look at the diamond without first establishing an absolute black surface on which to present it.

In this context, I'd argue that there may be more than surface appeal to attacks on Timothy Dalton's James Bond interpretation. Perhaps because it is that good, as opposed to bad.

... I was just about to start a thread talking about the most unappreciated parts or movies of the series. For me, it is Licence to Kill....

I'd like to see such a Thread.

[Revelator]

I also felt the subplot involving the stingers, and Pam making some deal between Leiter, the DEA, and Heller was unnecessary and nothing more than time filler; it seemed like an excuse to get the film up to two hours or more.

I'm sure such material is boring if you're not watching with care. Those of us who feel differently might say that the subplot is at the heart of the movie. The entire point of the subplot is that Bond wrecks it--through his stubborn, blinkered quest to wreck revenge by himself he scuttles other peoples' plans, plans which stood just as fine a chance of destroying Sanchez. But Bond is so caught up in pushing people away from him to achieve his own private revenge that he doesn't realize this until it's too late to make amends. Only after seeing the consequences of his actions does Bond finally accept that he needs help and cannot work alone, and so he accepts Pam and Q's help and finally achieves vengeance (and not without Pam hauling him out of the fire on a couple of occasions).In that respect LTK parts company from the typical revenge film by emphatically denying that no man can stand alone--a theme that has more in common with Rio Bravo than with Death Wish.

Edited by Revelator, 28 February 2010 - 12:37 PM.

[Dell Deaton]

I also felt the subplot involving the stingers, and Pam making some deal between Leiter, the DEA, and Heller was unnecessary and nothing more than time filler; it seemed like an excuse to get the film up to two hours or more.

I'm sure such material is boring if you're not watching with care. Those of us who feel differently might say that the subplot is at the heart of the movie. The entire point of the subplot is that Bond wrecks it--through his stubborn, blinkered quest to wreck revenge by himself he scuttles other peoples' plans, plans which stood just as fine a chance of destroying Sanchez. But Bond is so caught up in pushing people away from him to achieve his own private revenge that he doesn't realize this until it's too late to make amends. Only after seeing the consequences of his actions does Bond finally accept that he needs help and cannot work alone, and so he accepts Pam and Q's help and finally achieves vengeance (and not without Pam hauling him out of the fire on a couple of occasions).In that respect LTK parts company from the typical revenge film by emphatically denying that no man can stand alone--a theme that has more in common with Rio Bravo than with Death Wish.

Very good points; thanks!

It also works in a way that so many other "revenge" films fail, and in a way most consistent with the Bond character. As oppposed to some other rogue agent discussions, I think that the personal relationship that we know 007 has with Leiter, through the books (certainly) and the films, is leveraged to maximum impact here. Bond doesn't just quit because he's tired; he disobeys orders because of his personal loyalty to his friend.

And his redemption, if you will, comes through a process of both perfecting that and doing so in concert with others. Indeed, in trusting in them.

[Mr_Wint]

I am not sure if I agree with your "actual plot" comment. The plot is too simple to be sustained for over two hours. The result is a lot of tediousness in the middle act. All the scenes in Isthmus City felt tedious and boring.

I also felt the subplot involving the stingers, and Pam making some deal between Leiter, the DEA, and Heller was unnecessary and nothing more than time filler; it seemed like an excuse to get the film up to two hours or more.

I think the first act of the film is tedious. When we come to the middle-act it's way beyond that. Things are moving really slow when Sanchez gives his lecture to the Chinese. It feels like we have finished 3 hours of the film… and there's still 3 hours left.

I've never manage to understand the stinger missiles either. Bond normally has more powerful weaponry in his wristwatch so what's the big deal?

[Dell Deaton]

... I also felt the subplot involving the stingers, and Pam making some deal between Leiter, the DEA, and Heller was unnecessary and nothing more than time filler; it seemed like an excuse to get the film up to two hours or more.

... I've never manage to understand the stinger missiles either. Bond normally has more powerful weaponry in his wristwatch so what's the big deal?

In the case of Licence to Kill, a Rolex Submariner Date.

And the last "powerful weaponry" for that brand was the buzz-saw and super-powerful magnet in the Rolex Submariner worn by Roger Moore in Live and Let Die.

[DaltonCraig]

Other than Casino Royale, I haven't enjoyed a Bond movie as much as LTK.

[Mr_Wint]

a) it is one of the very few times that we see Bond actively infiltrating the villain's organization.

Not so much infiltrating. The villain more or less opened up the main entrance, gave Bond a warm hug and almost instantly invited Bond to his inner circle. No wonder they could capture Sanchez so easily.

[captnash2]

LTK misses that 'ticking time bomb' thing to give it killer climax.
same problem with QoS
if sanchez was on his way to use those stingers to shot down a airliner, or kill innocents, then it would have give bond real impetus to chase him down with the trucks.

[Dell Deaton]

a) it is one of the very few times that we see Bond actively infiltrating the villain's organization.

Not so much infiltrating. The villain more or less opened up the main entrance, gave Bond a warm hug and almost instantly invited Bond to his inner circle. No wonder they could capture Sanchez so easily.

not entirely. Sanchez remained suspicious of Bond after their first meeting, and could only be convinced by finding him captured and apparently tortured by Sanchez's own enemies (a nice twist compared to the usual formula). Well, and even then it still took Bond incriminating a member of Sanchez closest circle. Not exactly an open door policy, I would say.

Agreed.

Then, regarding the impetus for the climax, it seems to me the completion of Bond's overall motive, [a] to get revenge for Leiter by killing Sanchez (which just happened to come a the time where it did), and [b] to keep Sanchez from going on to set up shop another day. Pam had already told Bond what Sanchez was going to do with the stinger missiles, so it doesn't seem to have been necessary to have had the bad guy actually heading to some place and time to do it in order to keep the plot intensity where it needed to be.

That said, the actual finish with the tanker simply rolling off a hill didn't do much for me. But that wasn't exactly in Mr. Dalton's control.

Edited by Dell Deaton, 01 March 2010 - 01:17 PM.