An ‘underappreciated’ gem from the James Bond franchise is set to grace our screens tonight.
The 16th film in the James Bond series, Timothy Dalton’s spy thriller has often been dubbed an ‘underrated’ masterpiece by fans and critics alike. Licence to Kill, Dalton’s second and final outing as Bond, will be broadcast on ITV1 at 10.45pm tonight, November 5.
This 1989 espionage thriller marked John Glen’s fifth and final directorial stint, and it was also the last Bond film to feature Robert Brown as M and Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny.
Interestingly, Licence to Kill was the first Bond film that didn’t take its title from an Ian Fleming story. While the plot of the film is largely original, aspects of its sabotage premise were influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s film Yojimbo, as well as elements from Fleming’s novel Live and Let Die and his short story The Hildebrand Rarity.
Licence to Kill follows the fictional MI6 agent, James Bond, as he resigns from the secret intelligence service to seek personal revenge against Franz Sanchez, a drug lord who orchestrated a brutal attack on Bond’s friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter, and was responsible for the murder of Felix’s wife shortly after their wedding, reports the Mirror.
Due to financial limitations, Licence to Kill became the inaugural Bond picture filmed completely outside Britain, with primary production occurring in Mexico and the United States. The picture earned an impressive $156.2million worldwide against a production cost of $32million.
Discussing his choice to embrace the legendary character, Dalton was quoted in the 21st edition of ‘007’ Magazine saying: “I knew the danger of taking on something like Bond was immense; you know that if it hadn’t worked, it would have been a very serious, serious problem for me personally. And I think, in many ways, that perverse thing in all of us wants to take on a challenge and risk oneself, and I wanted to see if I could overcome that challenge and get these movies back into being in a world that I consider to be James Bond’s world.”
Boasting a 79 per cent critics approval score on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Licence to Kill garnered predominantly favourable reviews.
One reviewer said: “Some of 007’s earlier adventures fail to hold up, but in a post-‘Taken’ world, ‘Licence to Kill’ certainly aged well and is an under-appreciated gem in the Bond catalogue.”
A further critic wrote: “Licence to Kill is a different beast entirely. Violent, barbaric, and untamed – this was everything that James Bond decidedly was not. It was here that Dalton’s ideal of Fleming’s agent crystallized.”
A third critic, in a glowing review, added: “Every once in a while, [the Bond series] pulls in its stomach, pops the gun from its cummerbund, arches its eyebrow and gets off another bull’s-eye. The newest, Licence to Kill, is probably one of the five or six best of Bond.”
Enthusiasts of the franchise were equally captivated, with one saying: “One of the more underrated films in the franchise, Licence to Kill’s departure from the James Bond formula might understandably be alienating for some. For those who are fine with one of the movies trying something different, Timothy Dalton’s second, and unfortunately final, outing as 007 is one damn fine spy thriller.”
Meanwhile, another viewer added: “The most ruthless and violent film of the Bond series, and one of the most underrated also. Featuring Dalton in his second and final Bond film, which can only be described as one of the greatest travesties of film’s history; his era did not deserve to be the shortest one. Nothing i can say about this movie would’ve done it the justice it deserves; must watch.”