Licence to Kill
Licence to Kill is a 1989 action thriller film, the sixteenth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the second and final film to star Timothy Dalton as the MI6 agent James Bond. In the film, Bond resigns from MI6 in order to take revenge against the drug lord Franz Sanchez, who ordered an attack against Bond's CIA friend Felix Leiter and the murder of Felix's wife after their wedding.
For other uses, see Licence to Kill (disambiguation).Licence to Kill
- Albert R. Broccoli
- Michael G. Wilson
John Grover
MGM/UA Communications Co. (United States)
United International Pictures (International)
- 13 June 1989 (London)
- 10 July 1989 (United Kingdom)
- 14 July 1989 (United States)
133 minutes
English
$32 million
$156.1 million
Licence to Kill was the fifth and final Bond film directed by John Glen, the last to feature Robert Brown as M and Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny. It was also the last to feature the work of the screenwriter Richard Maibaum, the title designer Maurice Binder and the producer Albert R. Broccoli, all of whom died in the following years.
Licence to Kill was the first Bond film to not use the title of an Ian Fleming story. Originally titled Licence Revoked, the name was changed during post-production due to American test audiences associating the term with driver's licence. Although its plot is largely original, it contains elements of the Fleming novel Live and Let Die and the short story "The Hildebrand Rarity", interwoven with a sabotage premise influenced by Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo.
For budget reasons, Licence to Kill became the first Bond film shot entirely outside the United Kingdom: principal photography took place on location in Mexico and the US, while interiors were filmed at Estudios Churubusco instead of Pinewood Studios. The film earned over $156 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews, with praise for the stunts, but received criticism for the darker tone.
Plot[edit]
DEA agents collect MI6 agent James Bond and his friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter, on their way to Leiter's wedding in Key West, to have them assist in capturing drug lord Franz Sanchez. Bond and Leiter capture Sanchez by attaching a hook and cord to Sanchez's plane and pulling it out of the air with a Coast Guard helicopter. Afterwards, Bond and Leiter parachute down to the church in time for the ceremony.
Sanchez bribes DEA agent Ed Killifer and escapes. Meanwhile, Sanchez's henchman Dario and his crew ambush Leiter and his wife Della (murdering her in the process) while taking Leiter to an aquarium owned by one of Sanchez's accomplices, Milton Krest. Sanchez has Leiter lowered into a pond holding a Great White Shark. When Bond learns that Sanchez has escaped, he returns to Leiter's house to find that Leiter has been maimed and that Della has been murdered.[3][4] Bond, with Leiter's friend Sharkey, start their own investigation. They discover a marine research centre utilized as a front run by Krest, utilized by Krest, his employees and Sanchez to export money out of the United States and smuggle cocaine into the United States.
After Bond kills Killifer using the same shark pond used for Leiter, M meets Bond in Key West's Hemingway House and orders him to an assignment in Istanbul, Turkey. Bond resigns after turning down the assignment, but M suspends Bond instead and revokes his licence to kill. Bond becomes a rogue agent, although he later receives unauthorised assistance from Q.
Bond boards Krest's ship Wavekrest and foils Sanchez's latest drug shipment, stealing five million dollars in the process. He discovers that Sharkey has been killed by Sanchez's henchmen. Bond meets and teams up with Pam Bouvier, a pilot and DEA informant, at a Bimini bar,[5] and journeys with her to the Republic of Isthmus. He seeks Sanchez's employment by posing as an assassin for hire. Two Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau officers foil Bond's attempt to assassinate Sanchez and take him to an abandoned warehouse. They are joined by Fallon, an MI6 agent who was sent by M to apprehend Bond. Sanchez's men rescue him and kill the officers, believing them to be the assassins. Later, with the aid of Bouvier, Q, and Sanchez's girlfriend Lupe Lamora, Bond frames Krest by planting the $5 million in Wavekrest. Sanchez shuts Krest into a decompression chamber and cuts the oxygen cord, causing Krest to explosively decompress to his death. Bond is then admitted into the inner circle.
Sanchez takes Bond to his base, which is disguised as the headquarters of a religious cult. Bond learns that Sanchez's scientists can dissolve cocaine in petrol and then sell it disguised as fuel to Asian drug dealers. The televangelist Joe Butcher serves as middleman, working under Sanchez's business manager Truman-Lodge, who uses Butcher's TV broadcasts to communicate with Sanchez's customers in the United States. During Sanchez's presentation to potential Asian customers, Dario enters the room and recognises Bond. Bond starts a fire in the laboratory, but is captured again and placed on the conveyor belt that drops the brick-cocaine into a large processing machine. Bouvier arrives and shoots Dario, allowing Bond to pull Dario into the processing machine, killing him.
Sanchez and most of the others flee as fire consumes his base, taking with him four tankers full of the cocaine and petrol mixture. Bond pursues them by plane, with Bouvier at the controls. During the course of a stunt-filled chase through the desert, Bond destroys three of the tankers and kills several of Sanchez's men. Sanchez attacks Bond with a machete aboard the final remaining tanker, which crashes down a hillside. A petrol-soaked Sanchez attempts to kill Bond with his machete. Bond then reveals his cigarette lighter—the Leiters' gift for being the best man at their wedding—and sets Sanchez on fire. Sanchez stumbles into the wrecked tanker, causing a big explosion and killing himself. Bouvier arrives shortly afterward, and picks up Bond.
Later, a party is held at Sanchez's former residence. Bond receives a call from Leiter telling him that M has congratulated him for his work and offers him his job back. He then rejects Lupe's advances and romances Bouvier instead.
Release[edit]
Film ratings organisations had objections to the excessive and realistic violence, with both the Motion Picture Association of America and the British Board of Film Classification requesting content adaptations,[35] with the BBFC in particular demanding the cut of 36 seconds of film.[26] Licence to Kill became the first Bond film to receive a PG-13 rating from the MPAA’s ratings board, a rating that has been applied to every Bond film since. The 2006 Ultimate Edition DVD of Licence to Kill marked the first release of the film without cuts.[36] It remains the only Bond movie to be originally rated 15 by the BBFC.
Licence to Kill premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 13 June 1989,[37] raising £200,000 (£628,493 in 2024 pounds[38]) for The Prince's Trust on the night.[37]
There were also issues with the promotion of the film: promotional material in the form of teaser posters created by Bob Peak, based on the Licence Revoked title and commissioned by Albert Broccoli, had been produced, but MGM decided against using them[39] after American test screenings showed 'Licence Revoked' to be a common American phrase for the withdrawal of a driving licence.[10] The delayed, updated advertising by Steven Chorney, in the traditional style, limited the film's pre-release screenings.[6] MGM also discarded a campaign created by advertising executive Don Smolen, who had worked in the publicity campaign for eight previous Bond films, emphasising the rougher content of the film.[40][41]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
At the box office, Licence to Kill grossed $156.2 million ($373.3 million in 2022 dollars) on its budget of $32 million ($78.9 million in 2022 dollars), grossing an inflation-adjusted profit of $287.2 million, making it the twelfth biggest box-office draw of the year.[42][43][44] The film grossed a total of £7.5 million (£24 million in 2024 pounds[38]) in the United Kingdom,[45] making it the seventh-most successful film of the year,[46] despite the 15 certificate which cut down audience numbers.[47] In the US and Canada, it grossed $34.6 million,[48] making Licence to Kill the least financially successful James Bond film in the US, when accounting for inflation.[49] A factor suggested for the poor takings was fierce competition at the cinema, with Licence to Kill released alongside Lethal Weapon 2, Ghostbusters II, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (starring former Bond Sean Connery), and Batman.[32]
Other large international grosses include $14.2 million in Germany, $12.4 million in France, $8.8 million in Japan, $8.7 million in the Netherlands and $8.6 million in Sweden.[50]
Despite grossing more than 4.3 times its budget, Licence to Kill has made the lowest inflation-adjusted box-office return—as well as having the lowest profit margin—out of all 25 of the official Bond films as of 2022. Interestingly, the only other Bond movie with "Kill" in the title—A View To a Kill, which was also directed by John Glen—has the second-lowest inflation-adjusted return of any Bond movie. However, Licence to Kill's return ratio of 4.3 ranks it 18th out of the 25 official film entries from the series.
Contemporary reviews[edit]
Derek Malcolm in The Guardian was broadly approving of Licence to Kill, liking the "harder edge of the earlier Bonds" that the film emulated, but wishing that "it was written and directed with a bit more flair."[51] Malcolm praised the way the film attempted "to tell a story rather than use one for the decorative purposes of endless spectacular tropes."[51] Writing in The Guardian's sister paper, The Observer, Philip French noted that "despite the playful sparkle in his eyes, Timothy Dalton's Bond is ... serious here."[52] Overall French called Licence to Kill "an entertaining, untaxing film".[52] Ian Christie in the Daily Express excoriated the film, saying that the plot was "absurd but fundamentally dull",[53] a further problem being that as "there isn't a coherent storyline to link [the stunts], they eventually become tiresome."[53]
Hilary Mantel in The Spectator dismissed the film:
[[Category:1989 in American cinema]