Licence to Kill
This article is about the film and computer game. For the concept in real situations see licence to kill.
Licence to Kill (released theatrically in the United States as License to Kill, but sold for the home video market in the USA with the British spelling) is the sixteenth film in the popular James Bond series. Released in 1989 and directed by John Glen, it is the second film featuring Timothy Dalton as Bond.
The film's title was to have originally been Licence Revoked; it was later changed during production. Licence to Kill was also one of the least successful Bond films for two reasons. First, the increased level of violence led to the film being given a "15" rating which banned children from seeing the film. Additionally, this was a very serious motion picture and not all members of the audience took to Timothy Dalton's dark portrayal of James Bond, although it is widely acknowledged that this is indeed the closest to the Fleming character.
This was the first official Bond film to use a title not derived from an Ian Fleming novel or short story. It does, however, contain elements and characters from Fleming's novel, Live and Let Die and short story, "The Hildebrand Rarity." This would be the last Bond film to make direct use of Fleming concepts and characters until Die Another Day (2002).
Plot Summary
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
The movie opens with Bond and his friend, DEA agent Felix Leiter, parachuting into Leiter's wedding. On their honeymoon night, Leiter and his wife are captured by agents working for Sanchez, a Colombian drug baron Felix had helped to apprehend. Just before this scene, Sanchez had been released in the melee by a turncoat DEA agent, whom Bond promptly dispatched. Leiter is bound and lowered into a shark tank; the shark bites off the lower half of one of his legs. Bond comes on the scene after Sanchez's agents depart; he finds Leiter barely alive and his new wife dead (the capture scene strongly implies she was raped before being killed). Apart from giving Felix a wife, this portion of the film is closely modeled on a previously unfilmed chapter of Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die novel—right down to a furious James Bond almost immediately setting out to hunt down and kill every person involved in his friend's torture.
M meets Bond in Hemingway House and orders him to an assignment in Istanbul. Bond asks permission to stay, but M refuses, claiming that Bond's vendetta could easily compromise the British Government. M again orders Bond to Istanbul, and he responds by resigning. M orders that Bond's resignation is effective immediately, and revokes his licence to kill. Bond then escapes from the House. Bereft of official MI6 backing (but surreptitiously helped by weaponsmaker Q, who joins Bond voluntarily while pretending to be on leave), Bond journeys to the fictional country of "Isthimus" (meant to be Panama but filmed on the Mexican Riviera), and swiftly works his way into Sanchez's inner circle, learning about his plans to make cocaine undetectable by chemically dissolving it in gasoline and selling it to Oriental drug dealers, while communicating to the underworld through a series of TV broadcasts by fake tele-evangelist Professor Joe Butcher. The re-integration process will be available to those clients who can pay Sanchez's price. CIA agent Pam Bouvier, one of Leiter's informants, aids Bond in Isthmus and again as he destroys Sanchez' cocaine plant. Bond then pursues Sanchez as he tries to make his escape with four tanker trucks of cocaine, in a sequence which is often referred to as one of, if not the greatest ending sequences in the movies. The tanker that Bond and Sanchez are fighting on crashes, rolling down a hillside, and Sanchez has Bond at the point of a machete, but Bond pulls out a lighter given to him by Felix at the wedding and sets Sanchez alight, who stumbles into the wreck of the tanker, causing it to explode.
Later, Bond and Q are attending a party at Sanchez' former residence. Bond takes a call from Felix and is then informed that M has contacted him, offering his job back (despite an earlier incident which helped further ingratiate Bond with Sanchez at the cost of several Hong Kong narcotics agents and another MI6 agent). Bond then joins Pam in the swimming pool.
Vehicles & Gadgets
- Dentonite Toothpaste - Plastic explosives disguised as ordinary toothpaste.
- Signature Camera Gun - A camera that when put together became a sniper rifle that only worked with for Bond due to a scanner built into the grip.
Theme Music
The theme song to Licence to Kill was sung by Gladys Knight; the ending credits feature a "classic Bond" song, "If You Asked Me To", performed by Patti LaBelle. (Years later, the latter song would be a major hit for Céline Dion.) The soundtrack was composed by Michael Kamen.
Locations
Cast & Characters
- Producers: Albert R. Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson , Barbara Broccoli
- Written by: Michael G. Wilson, Michael Kamen
Trivia
- The shark attack scene involving Felix Leiter was originally in the book Live and Let Die.
External Link
