Without question the most underrated film of the series. Licence to Kill has acquired a bad reputation in certain parts for having the temerity to try and do something different. So the mission here is personal:
Bond seeking revenge for his mutilated and widowed friend Felix Leiter. The villain is a figure of fear, not ridicule. And the violence is pretty shocking for those raised on Roger Moore.
Forklift impalements, shark mutilations, raped and murdered wives, harpooning, inflagration, shredding and, most memorably, a head explosion are the order of the day. It isn't Tarantino, but you wouldn't watch it with the kids.
But the open-minded are in for a treat, a tightly plotted thriller free of the silliness and lazy writing that often plagued the Moore years. Even more refreshingly, a real sense of danger abounds: for once Bond actually feels in peril, and the odds are stacked against him. Stunts such as fishing one plane out of the sky and waterskiing behind another offer the obligatory high-concept action. Look out for a young Benicio Del Toro as the evil Dario; few smiles have ever been as sinister.
The Girl: Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell)
A real shot in the arm for the love interest. Former army pilot Pam Bouvier is hard-as-nails and takes zero shit from anybody. You wouldn't catch her mooning after Bond or screaming if he leaves the room for more than two seconds. We first meet Pam properly in a bar brawl with Dario and his thugs: she knocks out Dario and saves Bond's life to boot.
Getting shot in the back proves a minor inconvenience as she has the sense to wear Kevlar. Her annoyance at posing as Bond's private secretary - "why can't you be my private secretary?" is a real joy.
A word too for Lupe Lamora, Sanchez's abused girlfriend. Lupe bucks a trend by actually surviving the film, testament to her admirable resourcefulness and mental strength. Also testament to the writers for resisting the obvious path.
The Villain: Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi)
A brilliant villain, up there with Goldfinger and Scaramanga. Some criticise Sanchez for being "too real", as though every Bond baddie should live on the moon and want to replace humanity with a race of mermaids. Anyway Sanchez is hardly Pablo Escobar. He's intelligent, sophisticated, keeps a pet iguana and essentially owns his own city. (Okay, maybe a little Escobar.) But it is Sanchez's code of loyalty that marks him out from the typical villain, for whom doing them a favour is essentially signing your own death warrant. (Seriously, why would anybody work for Blofeld?) He's also remarkably competent: if Sanchez wants you dead, you getting dead.
It adds a real tension to Bond's infiltration of the Sanchez empire: for once, you believe that discovery won't result in imprisonment in an easily escapable room but swift, painful extermination.
The Car: Kenworth Trucks
Less aesthetically pleasing than an Aston Martin but only one winner in a game of road chicken. The four trucks, full of heroin, make up one of the greatest climaxes of the series as one by one they are destroyed in increasingly large explosions. One is blown up by a stinger missile, two collide and the last is ignited by a screaming Sanchez, whom Bond just set on fire.
The Gadget: Exploding Toothpaste
One of the joys of Licence to Kill is the prominence of Q. The grumpy gadget master effectively acts as Bond's sidekick for the second half of the film. Being in the field, Q can't churn out the gadgets, although he provides Bond with some plastic explosive in a toothpaste tube for a failed assassination of Sanchez.
The Song: Licence to Kill by Gladys Knight
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Not at the level of the previous two songs - Duran Duran and A-ha - this Gladys Knight number is workmanlike rather than inspired. Can't win them all.
The Quote
The Suit
Licence to Kill has many virtues but sartorial elegance isn't one of them. Most of Bond's suits are drab, baggy and stuck in 1980s. In the casino scene Bond sins by wearing a single-breasted dinner jacket with two buttons. Multiple buttons on the front is for double-breasted dinner jackets only. Also, the hairstyle here is a bit of a shocker.
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