Licence to Kill in review

I wouldn't put the LETHAL WEAPON films in the same category of LICENCE TO KILL as far as cinematography goes. LTK has some of the worst lighting the series ever had. Like that casino scene, there's so much harsh light going on that it never comes off authentic and it looks as if the actors are being cooked under that heavy light. Which is a shame because Peter Lamont's production design looks pretty fantastic. Shame they had to sully it with the way they shot and lit it. That's why all the daylight scenes are superior, simply because they look natural. But like LA brought up, the cameras never give room to the actors. They're always intruded by the camera constantly tracking them giving little room for them to do their thing.

Definitely John Glen's worst directing. A real lack of imagination. A film telling the story of Bond's quest for vengeance needed a different director more than any of the other 80s entries did. And when Glen would try something out of his comfort zone it was laughable. Such as the scene where Pam in a white robe approaches Dario. We see a shot with her approaching, and then cut to Dario looking up, cut to the SAME EXACT SHOT we saw of Pam approaching (not ever form his perspective) only this time with a soft filter effect to emphasize on her angelic look (because Dario thought he killed her earlier). Cut to Dario laughing, "HAHA... You're dead!", then cut to Pam with the same shot, but without the filter. She shoots, we cut to Dario getting shot and then cut to Pam again and for some reason the soft filter is back (???). There's no consistency to it. It just comes on and shuts off at random points. It's such a poorly executed scene.

Granted, I enjoy LTK because a lot of the cast and writing carries the flick well enough for me despite the gaffes in direction. But damn, it could have been much more if only Cubby didn't treat EON productions like a family. He let Glen have a crack at Bond for way too long, he's the least deserving guy to direct five films in a row.

15/22

13. The Spy Who Loved Me
14. Quantum Of Solace
15. Licence To Kill
16. Die Another Day *

* This list is based on the last re-rank of 9 May 2009.

6/10

Hightlights

Timothy Dalton
Production Design. One of the best of the series
The Music (Whylen Michael Kamen..)
The 3 songs
The videoclip of title song
Felix Story. Lucky with the same actor as LALD,
Pam Bouvier
All Ally's ()Q,M, Moneypenny, Felix, Sharkey)
Killfier
Submarine/Milton Krest
Airplane scene's
Truck scene
The choose at the end
I never feel that 6 year break,so it be a good movie to have Desmond returns in Goldeneye. It be the only actor who be the link between the other movies. Nice creating for new fans like me in 1995 and writing this, i think there did same trick with Judi Dench with Casino Royale. Funny enough both GE/CR have the same directer and 2 producers.

Les like:

Maintitle
Lupe Lamora
Sanchez Home
Sanchez

Worse:

Dario
Milton Krest
Buy Tv.
The end take to long inlcude Buy tv
Drugs scene
Drugs Buyers scene with Bond

Doubt:

Timothy Dalton never made a third movie. From the other side i start my first step of fandom with Goldeneye/TMND.

Sharky wrote:

The difference is that here it's especially bad. LICENSE TO KILL is John Glen on steroids.

All of his worst tendencies as a director to the power of n.

I've started thinking as of late that whenever something of visual merit rears its head in a Glen film, he didn't shoot it. For example, one of the better-shot bits of LTK - Tallon's arrival at the house Kwang is holding Bond at - was shot by the 2nd unit. Glen shot the conversation inside, and that's where things again grow unremarkable. I'm tempted to think Glen did the dull stuff mostly because he himself is such a dullard. I have to wonder how much of LTK's cheap look was down to a lack of direction given to the cameramen and lighting crew; Timothy Dalton has said that Glen rarely gave direction to the actors, so it would follow that he let the rest of the crew do whatever they wanted, as well. I just cannot imagine that the constant TV-movie tracking of subjects in LTK was a deliberate choice. I wonder if crew changes between TLD and LTK had something to do with this.

I know John Glen's area of expertise was second unit work, and he was always most interested in the action. A lot of the action in FYEO has a great OHMSS-style punch to it, but that was lost long before LTK rolled around. It's just strange. John Glen was probably bummed out quite a bit after five Bonds in a row. He didn't even film the tanker chase (the best piece in LTK, IMO).


ANYWAY... I was just thinking of Ways to Improve Licence to Kill last night. One thing that might've been smart would be to have Bond make up with M before taking down Sanchez. Bond knows he's f'ed up Kwang's operation, but finds himself uniquely placed to take Sanchez down himself. He gets his mission sanctioned by M and rallies the team - Q, Pam, Leiter, and the now-unemployed Wavekrest crew - before heading out to destroy Sanchez' operation. Make it so Bond is a team leader, sort of like when he rallies and leads a crew before going after Largo in Fleming's 'Thunderball'. That way, the rogue angle would be wrapped up, and the film would be better justified in pulling its thematic punches & playing things safe. More of a rah-rah finale. (That's not to say Bond's plan wouldn't go completely haywire, though.)

Louis Armstrong wrote:

Sharky wrote:

The difference is that here it's especially bad. LICENSE TO KILL is John Glen on steroids.

All of his worst tendencies as a director to the power of n.

I've started thinking as of late that whenever something of visual merit rears its head in a Glen film, he didn't shoot it.

Yeah, it's the George Lucas syndrome. I've got a feeling you're right. Paired with the right DPs and 2nd unit guys, the result looks and plays a lot better.

The best review of LTK I've yet read:

http://n007.thegoldeneye.com/ltk-review.html

Someone should email the author of those articles with a link to BAB.

info@thegoldeneye.com

You first.

Yeah, I've read that before. Not sure what he's going on about some of the time:

Quote :

He is a fictional mess: he is willing to go to almost any lengths to pursue the revenge on Leiter’s behalf; but once Sanchez is dead, Bond is not perturbed that the unstable Lupe has taken over the drug lord’s wealth. He even suggests that she and the corrupt president of Isthmus City should hook up (“I think you and El Presidente,” he tells her, “will make a lovely couple”). Brutal and careless, this Bond has no concern whatsoever for matters beyond his personal intentions. He functions out of pure self-interest.

Nice vocabulary, though.

Just read it all again. This bit was intriguing to me:

Quote :

As for co-director Dalton, could his anger throughout the film be a reflection of his own discontent with Glen’s lack of involvement?

On the flipside of this, I wouldn't be surprised if Glen's off-camera relationship with Dalton affected the film. If he disagreed with Dalton on the character and didn't enjoy working with him, he likely made filming with the actor short and sweet. And with a lack of focus on Dalton came a lack of focus on Bond. I've read (somewhere on CBn?) that there was, at one point, a conversation between Bond and Leiter at the film's end concerning the futility of Bond's revenge. It was cut out during editing because Glen felt it was too dour. Unfortunately, a little theme work was just what the film needed there...

That MGW had to take over script-writing duties probably didn't help anything. Maibaum had a grasp on Bond like none of the other writers did and likely would've let the character speak or reflect or whatever a bit more.

Louis Armstrong wrote:

I've read (somewhere on CBn?) that there was, at one point, a conversation between Bond and Leiter at the film's end concerning the futility of Bond's revenge. It was cut out during editing because Glen felt it was too dour. Unfortunately, a little theme work was just what the film needed there...

I had never heard about the existence in the script of such a scene, but it's a shame that they couldn't or wouldn't ultimately put it in there. While LTK is one of my absolute favorite Bond films, it does feel like there's a bit missing at the end there where Bond and Felix should have had some kind of a reflective moment regarding what had happened to get everything to that point. I do, however, like the ending and the upbeat nature of what is portrayed on the actual screen, but there is no reason that all of that couldn't have been preceded by such a reflective moment, and the film wouldn't have taken a turn towards being too dreary in the closing moments if they had structured it that way and kept the film's current ending.

[quote="dalton"]

Louis Armstrong wrote:

I've read (somewhere on CBn?) that there was, at one point, a conversation between Bond and Leiter at the film's end concerning the futility of Bond's revenge. It was cut out during editing because Glen felt it was too dour. Unfortunately, a little theme work was just what the film needed there...

I had never heard about the existence in the script of such a scene, but it's a shame that they couldn't or wouldn't ultimately put it in there. [/quote

It sounds like something Maibaum might have written, if he had continued on the film instead of having to give way to stepbrat due to' the WGA strike. Then again, I always thought Maibaum wrote the Fiona tells Bond off' scene in TB, but didn't somebody say Hopkins has claimed credit for it too?

I'm not one to embrace tampering with finished films, but I gotta say, remastering LTK with an eye toward interfering with what the DP did could help. Turn down all those overbright fill light areas so you get some nice hard DEEP blacks and contrast into the scene would do wonders for the imagery. TLD has some stage set stuff with obvious 'too much fill' lighting, but there's more contrast in the clothing and it doesn't seem to go on scene after scene like LTK.

Just occurred to me that that fish bears a striking resemblance to Cubby Broccoli.

Reminds me of Hitchcock though. This and the look Dalton gives when the swordfish cuts through the chair he held is something I wish never happened in the movie.

Just finishing up the LTK novelization by John Gardner.

I'm trying to plough through all 7 screenplay novelizations actually. Just got sidestracked. Will move on to GE next.

But anyway, I like the way Gardner tweeks the story here and there. ie at the Meditation Centre, Dario recognized Bond right away and immediately tells Sanchez. Bond doesn't know this for sure, so nothing changes from his end. He remains wary of letting Dario get a good look at him, but in Gardners treatment, Sanchez gives the order to Dario to reel in Bond.

Gardner also fleshes out Bond's capture by Kwang and gives us background on the Mi6 Isthmus City agent.

Funny, LTK is such a Dalts film, that I find myself actually picturing Dalts when I read the book. Usually I envisage book-Bond, any book-Bond, as a tougher version of the Rog Moore look.

LTK is a decent enough film, however I didn't really like the first half of the film. They should have given a better plotline as to why Bond goes after Sanchez. We now know in real life that the DEA had agents working alongside Colombian police and military in going after the drug cartels (Escobar), so why not work something similar in. It just was not believable in the death of the wife of Felix. The bar fight was terrible, very Roadhouse, very 80's.

Overall this is their attempt at an action type film which was the popular genre then. It has some great moments but let down on lazy script writing in placing Bond going after Sanchez. Though it is refreshing to have a villain not taking over the world and just an out and out opportunist.

I definitely prefer the second half of LTK (or perhaps from Bond's infiltration of the Wavekrest), but I enjoy the start for it being shamelessly 80s cheese, as well as the incorporation of unused Fleming material. I don't think lazy script writing let the film down (that's Craig-Bond territory - Craig performing QOS rewrites and offering ideas for SP. CR is another story all together.) in fact I think it's the very film John Glen set out to make; I believe he's mentioned it as his favourite Bond film he directed. I personally hold the film in the bottom half of my ranking, but I still enjoy it immensely. I wish the entire film felt like the second half.

I used to hate LTK. Recently, I've found the characterisation interesting. Is Sanchez very different from Bond in his moral codes?

^ Nope, he just managed to make more money.

Caught a bit of LTK on the televisual box the other night. Certainly found that it has a new feel to it post-Narcos.

CJB wrote:

^ Nope, he just managed to make more money.

Ah, but that's what I mean. Money is shown to be relatively unimportant to both Bond and Sanchez. What they value most is loyalty. In their own confused ways, men of honour.

Agree that LTK seems more interesting post-Narcos. At the time I saw it as a Miami Vice/Lethal Weapon ripoff.

Erica Ambler wrote:

CJB wrote:

^ Nope, he just managed to make more money.

Ah, but that's what I mean. Money is shown to be relatively unimportant to both Bond and Sanchez. What they value most is loyalty. In their own confused ways, men of honour.

Agreed, it's the classic mirror image to Bond as Scaramanga was. He, too, was less concerned with money and more with his particular code and whatnot. Serves as a reminder that men of Bond's instincts and skill set aren't always the "good" guys.

Yep, it's the classic narrative set-up; a thief to catch a thief. It appeals to me more than Dalton's accent - I don't recall him sounding like a Welsh miner in TLD.

I don't know, I can't rate LTK enough. Need to take my blinkers off probably.

It's always amused me how the action movies of the era were so fond of making coke dealers the bad guys, considering how much of their product Hollywood was hoovering up.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

It's always amused me how the action movies of the era were so fond of making coke dealers the bad guys, considering how much of their product Hollywood was hoovering up.

Hollywood also (rightly) made villains of rapists, and yet...

Can but look forward to Weinstein in twenty years time. James Franco or some such in the role.

Licence to Kill...My favorite after From Russia With Love.

Welcome Dr Kananga... Anyone with FRWL as their favourite Bond film can't be all bad.