Brad Whitaker and General Georgi Koskov in The Living Daylights?

What are our collective thoughts on these two villains - 'Major' Brad Whitaker, arms dealer and the KGB General Georgi Koskov in The Living Daylights. Are either of them convincing as credible James Bond villains. As there are two 'big bads' here, does the Bond villainy get rather diluted as a result. there was a similar experiment with Prince Kamal Khan and General Orlov in Octopussy, but that seemed to work better and Khan probably had more screen-time than Orlov did.

I think that Koskov comes across as one of the more cultured and less barbarian of the James Bond villains - perhaps even too much of a light touch while Whitaker is under-used, but he does have a brilliant fight scene with Bond ast the end. Necros makes up for tyhe lack of menace from the big two villains, but he's dispatched before the final act.

Are Whitaker/Koskov of the Stromberg school of Bond villainy?

I'd love to hear your thoughts....

I like Koskov. People seem to give the character a hard time because he doesn't drown kittens and is thus not sufficiently villainous but rather, as you mentioned, he comes across as quite genteel, humourous and likeable. I have no problem with this. He's initially supposed to look like a "good guy" after all.

Certainly can't fault the acting of Krabbe and Baker. They did well in TLD.

I like them both too. Krabbe gives Koskov a likeable personality and ultimately comes off as a villain you love to hate, because of that zest. Baker gives Whitaker a sense of pity, and at times, you feel for him. As a duo, they work well.

Unfortunately, though, there is a strong calibre of villains in the franchise, which may make them seem underwhelming. They certainly don't detract from the film, in fact, they really do contribute the the film's enjoyability, but out of most other villains, they do rank lower on the list.

I remember when I was a kid just being confused as to who the "main" traditional Bond villain was supposed to be.

Koskov's definitely the more jocular sort of Bond villain ... he's devious and scheming sure, but never exactly sinister (although he's the one with the 'henchman' in the form of Necros). Whitaker has the arrogance (Pushkin's puncturing of his 'military pretensions' is rather wonderful) and ruthlessness. Good performances from Krabbe and Baker :) .

I've always liked Whitaker and remember seeing the film when it opened and being shocked that he only had four scenes Horribly, horribly underused. If I compiled a list of the top ten biggest mistakes EON made, I would put the lack of Whitaker on that list. It is criminal how little he is used in the film. Great performance from Joe Don Baker, the lines are terrific....there was so much potential for a great, larger than life villain, and I think John Glen and Dalton simply toned it down too much.

Necros was also a great villain, and probably underrated a bit as well. Not sure how much, if any, of his dialogue was dubbed over, but I thought that the villain was the total package. Only thing I would change about Necros is to vary the songs on his tape player (what was he carrying around in his Walkman? A cassette single? He only listens to one song before he kills?) The deadly headphones...the exploding milk bottles....all great stuff.

Koskov is less memorable, but that's no fault of Krabbe. There needs to be a variety in the types of villains used; they can't all be balding and stroking white cats.

If I could change something else I would remove Pushkin from the script and assign all his scenes to Gogol. I *believe* I read many years ago (maybe even during filming) that that was the original intent, but the filmmakers weren't sure they would be able to get Gotell's schedule to fit with theirs. Or maybe he was ill. I believe it was the former, because he does make an appearance at the end, but it's quite odd for him to be shoe-horned in that way. The scenes with Pushkin may have had more resonance if they had been of Gogol instead. On the flip side, long time viewers of the series would have known it was a ruse by Koskov, because we knew Gogol was a decent guy. So maybe it all worked out in the end. But I feel like Dalton's line: "If it has to be done, I should do it." would have hit home more than they did if we knew he was going to assassinate a character we'd all come to like, as did he, and a character he had reservations about killing. Pushkin actually looked like a bad guy, and I don't know how sympathetic the audience would have been if Bond had actually killed him.

If you think - as I do - of TLD as the first reboot, then it's just as well that Pushkin replaced Gogol.

It's better that Dalton's Bond had a history with Pushkin, and not with old Anatol, as I can't really see Dalton as a continuation of Moore's Bond. Having Walter Gottell 'shoehorned' in at the end was a nice tribute, and I'm only sorry that Leonid Pushkin never reappeared.

I didn't think so at the time, but upon reflection I think it worked out for the best. As for Whittaker, he seemed like too much of a delusional buffoon to take seriously as a lead villain. He definitely needed more screen time to establish himself. Having only one scene with Bond is part of the problem, but I can't see where another could have been worked in, apart from Bond telling someone - as he did regarding Pushkin - that he'd had dealings with him before as well.

If Bond actually existed in 1987, in the real world, then the villains would have been like this. Brilliant.

I've never quite understood who Whittaker is. We know that he is American. Is he an active member of the military who has gone rogue? Is he a retired military guy who owns a weapons dealing business? Is he part of some paramilitary organization that he created to sell weapons?

I think its option 2, but I'm not positive. He dresses in uniform and goes by a rank and has uniformed soldiers taking orders from him, but that doesnt really rule anything out.

KingCobra686 wrote:

I've never quite understood who Whittaker is.  We know that he is American.  Is he an active member of the military who has gone rogue?  Is he a retired military guy who owns a weapons dealing business?  Is he part of some paramilitary organization that he created to sell weapons?

I think its option 2, but I'm not positive.  He dresses in uniform and goes by a rank and has uniformed soldiers taking orders from him, but that doesnt really rule anything out.

Pushkin: "Spare me your military pretensions! What army did you serve in? You were expelled from West Point for cheating. Then a short stint as a mercenary in the Belgian Congo. Later you worked with various criminal organizations who helped fiance your first arms deals."

Sounds more like your option 3 to me.

AMC Hornet wrote:

KingCobra686 wrote:

I've never quite understood who Whittaker is.  We know that he is American.  Is he an active member of the military who has gone rogue?  Is he a retired military guy who owns a weapons dealing business?  Is he part of some paramilitary organization that he created to sell weapons?

I think its option 2, but I'm not positive.  He dresses in uniform and goes by a rank and has uniformed soldiers taking orders from him, but that doesnt really rule anything out.

Pushkin: "Spare me your military pretensions! What army did you serve in? You were expelled from West Point for cheating. Then a short stint as a mercenary in the Belgian Congo. Later you worked with various criminal organizations who helped fiance your first arms deals."

Sounds more like your option 3 to me.

I must have missed the second half of that dialogue when watching. That does explain it pretty well.

Makes me curious what his uniform represents then. Does he have USA insignia or anything from another country, or is it 100% made up?

KingCobra686 wrote:

AMC Hornet wrote:

KingCobra686 wrote:

I've never quite understood who Whittaker is.  We know that he is American.  Is he an active member of the military who has gone rogue?  Is he a retired military guy who owns a weapons dealing business?  Is he part of some paramilitary organization that he created to sell weapons?

I think its option 2, but I'm not positive.  He dresses in uniform and goes by a rank and has uniformed soldiers taking orders from him, but that doesnt really rule anything out.

Pushkin: "Spare me your military pretensions! What army did you serve in? You were expelled from West Point for cheating. Then a short stint as a mercenary in the Belgian Congo. Later you worked with various criminal organizations who helped fiance your first arms deals."

Sounds more like your option 3 to me.

I must have missed the second half of that dialogue when watching.  That does explain it pretty well.

Makes me curious what his uniform represents then.  Does he have USA insignia or anything from another country, or is it 100% made up?

I've been thinking about all of this again too, especially about Whitaker. There's so still much we don't really know about him. He's one of the most forgotten Bond villains, in my view. I'd like to know more about his uniforms and private army too.

I take it he is really just a fantasist with no real military background (we do know he was expelled for cheating at West Point) that would justify his uniforms?

Following on from my nigh-on 5 year old (!) post in this thread, I've never been huge on Whitaker. Frankly, I find that whole sequence at the end to be a bit anti-climactic. You're left thinking about what the point is of Whitaker and why this was a necessary scene post-Afghan brouhaha.

CJB wrote:

Following on from my nigh-on 5 year old (!) post in this thread, I've never been huge on Whitaker. Frankly, I find that whole sequence at the end to be a bit anti-climactic. You're left thinking about what the point is of Whitaker and why this was a necessary scene post-Afghan brouhaha.

I guess Whitaker was a loose end that had to be tied up, plus he and Bond had not yet met. It msy ne tagged-on a bit following the Guy Hamilton school of directing and the Tom Mankiewicz school of scriptwriting.

Secret Files wrote:

CJB wrote:

Following on from my nigh-on 5 year old (!) post in this thread, I've never been huge on Whitaker. Frankly, I find that whole sequence at the end to be a bit anti-climactic. You're left thinking about what the point is of Whitaker and why this was a necessary scene post-Afghan brouhaha.

I guess Whitaker was a loose end that had to be tied up, plus he and Bond had not yet met. It msy ne tagged-on a bit following the Guy Hamilton school of directing and the Tom Mankiewicz school of scriptwriting.

Whitaker is conceptually a great villain but yet poses no credible personal threat - that in itself shouldn't be a problem but factor in (a percieved?) anal need to either sate an audience's ocd or else blood-lust and have the big bad get his/hers/theirs, it is made an issue. Worse is that latterly the only route to such a resolution seems to be a 1 on 1 effectively forcing Bond into a conflict with someone really beneath his skills level (quick girly screaming Dominic Greene flashback).

Gone are the glorious days when Bond actually had something worthy of calling in the Marines to assist with it seems or that we might actually get a recurring foe whose mind and ambition is the real threat rather than his body.

So yes sadly it is an anticlimactic end that blights what is otherwise one of the very best Bonds imo, it could have been restructured to tie that loose end up earlier (even if it was just have him blow up with something else) or he could have survived and escaped - in many ways Whittaker as the arms dealer fuelling multiple Bond subsequent villains may have played out well.

That part aside though I find the villains of TLD a nice change of pace and far more interesting that what we see in FYEO, OP, CR, QoS, SP

I prefer the villains of FYEO and OP to TLD, but I do agree that Whitaker isn't used to his fullest potential. The ending does indeed feel tacked on, and I suppose having Don Baker return may have been interesting. But he's much more suited to Wade so I'm glad Whitaker was killed off. It could have been a little more compelling though. Maybe it's just that: they needed better death scenes: Georgi could have died in that crash in Afghanistan, but perhaps seeing him die at the hands of Pushkin would have been a little more interesting. I don't know what the solution could have been for Whitaker, and perhaps the writers didn't, either.

Having just caught the first half of The Living Daylights on telly, I have to say I don't think I fully appreciated the bizarre factor of Whitaker's first scene and his personalised 'butchers' for statues. Fleming would be proud.

I feel that the villains in this one are the weakest in the series probably. Whitaker is a very lame villain layer compared to the other villains. Even though he is not a megalomaniac who wants to take over the world, other villains in the series before who were not, still had better layers. Kristatos had St. Cyrils, Khan had the Monsoon palace, Sanchez had that underground lab, hidden in an ancient ruin, etc.

But Whitaker has a very average looking music where he likes to play with war models and relics. I thought it was very lame.

Koskov is played too flamboyantly. I know he is trying to appear like a good guy, but it's overacted and done out of comedy it seems, and was just over done.

Necros, out of all the blond Red Grant rip offs, is one of the dullest if not the dullest one.

I think they are brilliantly realistic with legitimate goals and a dramatic flair inherent in them that gives them a Bondian quality necessary for the film.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

Having just caught the first half of The Living Daylights on telly, I have to say I don't think I fully appreciated the bizarre factor of Whitaker's first scene and his personalised 'butchers' for statues. Fleming would be proud.

Having watched this the other day, I like Rhys-Davies in that scene. His quiet disdain for both Whitaker's 'heroes' and the fact he's not a proper soldier (that, "which Army did you serve in?").

Pushkin relishes stating Whitaker's actual background and puncturing his strutting around a bit before suddenly coming to the point which of course (without Bond) would have been his doom.

Indeed Rhys-Davies does an excellent job as Pushkin, and his disgust and contempt of Whitaker's pretensions really do make that scene. Shame an arrangement couldn't have been made for his return in GE (he wanted a bigger part than Mishkin's few scenes, no?). Would have made for the perfect Cold War double bill, TLD and GE.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

Indeed Rhys-Davies does an excellent job as Pushkin, and his disgust and contempt of Whitaker's pretensions really do make that scene. Shame an arrangement couldn't have been made for his return in GE (he wanted a bigger part than Mishkin's few scenes, no?). Would have made for the perfect Cold War double bill, TLD and GE.

My understanding is that because role was so distilled in later drafts that there was no point in bringing back Pushkin. Dalton had left the role two months after the original draft was written, so there was less an incentive to keep up connections to Dalton's films. The way Mishkin was unceremoniously killed certainly wouldn't have flown for fans who liked Pushkin.

Freddie Grey and a male M were in the original draft as well. However, both Robert Brown and Geoffrey Keen were retired, so we would have likely got a new M anyway and the defense minister would have been written out as he ultimately was.

Pushkin having died the same death as Mishkin would certainly help cement Ourumov (and Janus') villainy, if it needed a boost.

But you're right, not sure I'd have been happy with Pushkin being bumped off. Wonder if he could have become a Zukovsky-esque character, considering so much of Soviet military and defence ventured into organised crime.