Licence to Kill

Bond's friend Felix is about to get married. On the way to the ceremony at Key West, the two are pulled into an ongoing operation to arrest drug lord Franz Sanchez. In a very adventurous manner, Felix and Bond land in front of the church Felix is to be married in.

While Sanchez escapes by paying off DEA agent Killifer while Felix and his new wife are surprised by Sanchez' henchmen in the honeymoon suite. When Bond learns that Felix has been badly injured and his new wife was killed, he is out for revenge. His first victim is Killifer (Ed from Twin Peaks!), who gets fed to a shark, with his bribe money as a sendoff. M flies in to send him to a new assignment in Istanbul, Bond refuses and quits. M revokes his licence to kill and he is taken into MI6 custody, which of course he escapes. James Bond is now a rogue agent.

He teams up with a former CIA agent, following Sanchez to the Republic of Isthmus, where he poses as an assassin looking for work, earning Sanchez' trust. Bond's assassination attempt of the drug lord is foiled by agents of the Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau, which has been undercover trying to discover Sanchez' operations headquarter. Bond is again captured by the MI6 and about to be sent back to London. Yet, once again he escapes, this time with the help of Sanchez, who believes the Hong Kong agents to be responsible for his assassination attempt. Bond slowly worms his way into the inner circle of the drug operation.

The genius of the drug operation is that cocaine is dissolved in petrol and sell this 'fuel' to Asian drug lords (repeatedly referred to as 'the Orientals'). The sale runs through a televangelist named Joe Butcher (which is really kind of genius - the selling, not the name). The money making plot is the process to get the cocaine from the petrol again, the information is sold by Sanchez.

The grand show-down takes place in Sanchez' laboratory, where Bond is discovered by Sanchez henchman Dario, who betrays him to Sanchez, which leads to the final fight between him and Bond. With all that petrol around, this can only end in fire and explosions. Poor Dario ends up in a giant shredder.

I'm starting to like Timothy Dalton as Bond. The villain here is played by Robert Davi, but the (to me) significant baddie is a very young Benicio del Toro as Dario. The televangelist is played by Wayne Newton, somewhere in the middle of his plastic surgery transformations.

Quite entertaining and much more straight-forward in plot than many other Bond films.

6/10

The Living Daylights

James Bond, in this incarnation played by Timothy Dalton, has to deal with a defecting KGB officer that is to be brought to save haven (my beautiful Vienna!) before taking him to Britain.

But is is all a ploy by the KGB guy, who in reality is in cahoots with an American arms dealer. He is also buying diamonds and with them paying for drugs. So really, he has quite a few irons in the fire. The only one to see through the original ruse - why, James Bond, of course.

The lady by his side is a lovelorn cellist who assumes Bond is helping her to reunite with her KGB agent (who is willing to sacrifice her in a flash). So we travel to Bratislava, Vienna, Tangiers and Afghanistan, always following the bad guys from the agent to the diamonds to the drugs.

Yes, it is a lot to take in.

My biggest bother is that Bond activates a bomb with a timer to blow up the drugs. The bomb is on a plane that is set to take off, shortly. Why he would the timer set to ten minutes only is beyond me. He is obviously just setting himself up for trouble. But, this is a James Bond film, so...whatever.

As for Timothy Dalton - I liked him more than I thought I would.

6/10