The New 007: Bringing Bond Back to Basics

Licence to Kill

Directed by John Glen

At Loews Copley

THE world has undeniably changed since the release of the first James Bond movie,Dr. No, in 1962. That film was made at the height of Cold War tension, at a time when the superpowers came closer than ever before--or ever since--to the brink of nuclear destruction. And Ian Fleming's rugged superspy fit perfectly into that world.

But things are a little different now, and the producers of the latest Bond venture, Licence to Kill, know it. People are jaded now; the threat of nuclear Armageddon doesn't seem to faze them. Bye-bye SPECTRE, bye-bye SMIRSH, there is a new agent of terror in the modern world.

As faithful watchers of Miami Vice already recognize, the greatest threat to our national security is no longer global terrorism--it's drugs. So the villian in Timothy Dalton's second outing as Bond, and the first of the series not to be based on a Fleming work, is guess what, a narcotics kingpin.

Of course, Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) is no ordinary narcotics trafficker. He presides over an illicit empire every bit as opulent as Blofeld's or Auric Goldfinger's. He's also equally sadistic; he doesn't bat an eyelash as he feeds Bond's CIA friend, Felix Leiter (David Hedison), to his pet great white shark.

Which gives Dalton a long overdue chance to re-invent the James Bond character. In Licence to Kill, Dalton is a spy with a vendetta. His dark, brooding face displays not the faintest hint of humor. And without necessarily being more violent than his predecessors, Dalton somehow manages to appear more brutal.

Dalton's first outing as Bond, in the 1987 The Living Daylights, was an obvious attempt to get away from the light-hearted jokester that Roger Moore had made of the role. Dalton, a well-known stage actor (he used to be with the Royal Shakespeare company) was supposed to be a newer, younger Sean Connery, who may not have played the role the way Ian Fleming envisioned it, but who is nonetheless the paradigmatic Bond.

Dalton plays the role in an even more earthy style than Connery, if possible. He is by far the most physical of the Bonds, and consequently, the movie never stops moving.

Dalton also has tried to bring some psychological drama back to the role. His Bond, balancing on the edge of sanity, is still haunted by the death of his wife. And the attack on Felix pushes him almost over the edge. He drops his Secret Service duties and embarks on a murderous hunt for Sanchez.

ON the way he enlists a little help from all the traditional Bond staples. As the main female lead, Carey Lowell provides a bit of excitement at first; she's a CIA informer for Felix whom Dalton picks up during his investigation. They narrowly escape death at their first meeting, and spend an amusing few minutes arguing over who saved whose life and who acted most professionally. Unfortunately, Lowell's role quickly degenerates to the point where she's half kept woman and half sidekick.

As Sanchez, Davi gets to play one of the best Bond villains in years. He also gets to deliver a few deadpan one-liners, which are occasionally amusing. Basically, Sanchez is just an entrepreneur with a sadistic streak. ("I want you to know, this is nothing personal. It's purely business," he tells Felix as he is lowered to the waiting shark.)

And despite Bond's pseudoretirement, he manages to retain the services of Q (Desmond Llewelyn), who supplies him with an array of lethal gadgets from exploding alarm clocks to signature rifles.

Many of the action scenes seem rather sloppily put together--the stunts don't dazzle you as they did in the last few movies. It may be just as well--some of the later Roger Moore movies have been little more than collections of stunts thrown together. And Dalton's revamped Bond strikes the note of low-key, gruesome humor that the series needs. Licence to Kill one of the strongest Bond entries in recent years.

And the producers have the right idea in trying to modernize the atmosphere of the movies. Even classics like From Russia With Love seem a little dated these days. No one would expect the Bond of today to be a Xerox copy of the one from 20 years ago. Licence to Kill seems to be an effort to combine the staples of the old Bond--girls and gadgets--with a modern twist, a new type of hero and a new type of enemy.

BUT my suspicion is that the new James Bond will prove a little puritanical for the modern movie audience. In the last movie, the cause celebre was safe sex, and Bond made the unheard of move of ordering separate hotel rooms for himself and his lady friend.

This time around, drugs are the cause of the day, and face it, they don't compare to nuclear warheads when it comes to striking fear into people's hearts. The horror stories of drugrelated murders that we read in the paper every day are terrifying, but they are a type of terror that is far more conventional than the thought of an entire city being vaporized by a lunatic with an itchy trigger finger.

So why center the plot on a drug ring? Simple. Drugs are fashionable, and they make an easy target. And it proabably is no coincidence that Licence to Kill carries a disclaimer in its credits, warning of the dangers of smoking. The new James Bond target is every kind of personal vice. God save us from spies with social consciences, particularly ones who open fire on their enemies in crowded bars filled with reasonably innocent people who just want to get away from their troubles.

It's possible that the makers of James Bond have got it right, and the only things left for the superspy to tackle are society's unsolved problems. But then again, maybe the late '80s and the early '60s are more alike than we want to believe. The specter of nuclear annhiliation is just as real today as it was 25 years ago, if not more so. Maybe there's still room for a James Bond who grapples with the really big problems in the world.