16th movie, Timothy Daltons second and last movie as Bond, and it's said to be the grittiest of them all. Pre-credits scene follows first the drug lord Franz Sanchez getting back his girlfriend who ran away with some other bandit... and they proceed to cut his heart out. Out of sight of course. Then switch over to 007 together with Felix Leiter on the way to Felix wedding, when the drug patrol or whatever appears and tells them that Sanchez is in the Bahamas right now so Felix that heads the case for this goes off and 007 tags along. They capture him with their helicopter escaping to Cuba in his own plane. And then follows the song License to Kill. A large step down from the last movie, but who can top John Barry and A-ha?
So Felix gets married. Sanchez escapes with the help of a dirty cop that he bribed with 2 million dollars and Sanchez retaliates by killing Felix's bride and feeding him to a shark. Not the whole body, just the leg to send a message. Which Felix survives so not a good plan I would say, even for the cop who took the money. I don't get why even try to take revenge on Felix. He even says it's nothing personal, only business, so why not just leave? As we learn he is on the cusp of a big deal so why even antagonising the Americans for killing their CIA-agent? Maybe they didn't expect a British rouge agent to deal with.
As this gets personal for Bond he finds the shark in a fishing centre owned by some researcher. Who in actuality is smuggling drugs for Sanchez with subs and aeroplanes. Oh, underwater action, must be a good Bond-movie. He finds the dirty cop and feeds him to the shark by throwing the case of money on him, which is a nice symbolism, greed kills him. 007 and Sharky, a mutual friend to Felix, starts to prepare an operation against the researcher, when Bond is taken to M who wonders why he isn't on his mission the arguments gets heated enough that Bond resign, but escapes to finish his own mission. At the yacht of the researcher he meets the girl again from the intro. Meanwhile they prepare to send a shipment to Sanchez and another boat appears with the body of Sharky. So 007 kills the man responsible, destroys the shipment of drugs and steals the money from the plane that made the delivery. A good scene.
Alone, 007 gets to Leiters home where he saw Felix hide all information he had on the Sanchez case where he locates the last living informant, Bouvier. Bond finds Bouvier at a bar when Sanchez henchmen shows up, Bouvier is packed with a shotgun and is able to hold the place so that she and Bond can escape. As a former pilot she agrees to fly 007 to Ishtmus City, the capital of Ishtmus in Latin American country, mimicking the strongmen militaries of that continent and the drug lords around there. Of course, many of them was sponsored by the USA as to try to stop the spread of communism. The film doesn't go into that. In Ishtmus Bond get closer to Sanchez and during the night he lays explosive plastic around the plexiglas window to blow it up and with a special gun that only 007 can use, that Q gave him, intends to assassinate Sanchez. He's stopped by Hong Kong drug police that works with the British operative. The failed assassination disturbs their plan to get to the factory that creates the drugs Sanchez is selling around the world. They were there undercover as drug lords to join Sanchez in a drug cartel over the whole Pacific with some new experimental drug that can be hidden in petrol and then extracted, making it impossible to track.
Bond is taken to their hideout and is about to be sent home to England, but Sanchez military tracked them down and in the fight kills the other agents, leaving Bond unconscious tied to a table. Already established with Sanchez, the drug lord thinks the other agents tried to kill him and Bond tried to stop them, and was the reason for being tied up. So Bond starts manipulating him by making him paranoid over his own henchmen. The researcher he insinuates payed the sum to get Sanchez killed so Sanchez investigates the ship as it comes back. He finds the money Bond stole, but now it looks like it was embezzled. So the researcher is thrown into a decompression chamber and makes him explode. 007 is invited to the laboratory and when the henchmen that was at the bar recognises him, he starts burning up the place with the high explosive drug. He also get Sanchez to kill the head of security. Then follows a chase with tanker trucks, all destroyed and in the end Bond lights the petrol drained Sanchez up in flames with a cigarette lighter he got from Felix as a present at the wedding. Everyone in Ishtmus celebrates and Bond talks with Leiter over the phone that recovered. And then he gets away with Bouvier. The end.
One of the movies I saw the least of, mostly since my parents though it probably wasn't good for a kid to see it. And they were probably right. The violence is graphic, the revenge theme is heavy. Watching it now, it's pretty decent. Maybe not the best plot to go with two drug related movies after each other. Also, the plot isn't that world endangering. Music is not that great. And I can't help notice that something looks off with Daltons hair. It's only been two years between movies, but looks like Dalton got hit hard with aging. Compare to Connery and Moore. Connery got some silver in the hair while Moore only got wrinkles. And the title for the Swedish version was Time for Revenge since they already used the title back in first movie and after this they didn't even bother translating the movies.
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