**YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SPOILERTOWN**
Plot: A drug lord kills Felix Leiter’s wife and maims Felix (via shark tank of course!) as retribution for being captured. Bond goes rogue and sets out for revenge.
Foiled by: 007 goes full espionage rampage and finds a way to get all his enemies killed, saving Sanchez for last and doing it himself with Felix’s lighter. Brilliant.
Intriguing Setting(s): Fictional nation of Isthmus | Key West
Bond: Timothy Dalton
Villain(s):
- Franz Sanchez
- Dario – a young Benicio del Toro!
- Krest
- Truman-Lodge
- Professor Joe Butcher – phony televangelist played by the one and only Wayne Newton
Bond Girl(s):
- Pam Bouvier – CIA agent/pilot
- Lupe Lamora – Sanchez’s girlfriend/mistress
HL’s Hot Take: HANDS DOWN my favorite Bond. Actual spy shit, 007 goes rogue, reminded of how his vendetta is interfering with other operations in multiple ways. So good.
Head Librarian Rank: 1/24
Critical Rank: 10/24
TRIVIA SECTION!
Odds & Ends:
- Q tags along to help Bond in the field.
- Originally named and marketed as License Revoked, but the studio thought people wouldn’t make the connection with his “license to kill”
- Dalton was contracted to do a third film in 1991 but the franchise hit legal battles over ownership, the lead screenwriter died and TD exercised an option in his contract to resign.
6 Degrees Cameos:
- Benicio del Toro
- Wayne Newton – good cameo guy in Vegas movies like Ocean’s Eleven
- Robert Davi (Franz Sanchez) is also in The Goonies and plays Big Johnson in Die Hard.
Gadgets:
- Dentonite toothpaste, plastic explosives disguised as toothpaste with a pack of cigarettes as detonator
- Camera gun, which only fires when it reads Bond’s palm print
- Laser Polaroid – takes x-ray pictures!
Cars: Lincoln Continental Mark VII
Awards: sadly no, unless you count the Edgar Allen Poe Awards (Best Motion Picture Nominee)
Release Order: 16/25 (1989)