Workplace Accident
Shaking things up in the Bond appreciation fellowship I declare here that License to Kill (1989), with Timothy Dalton as Agent 007, Bond James Bond, is the second best Bond film. The best is Thunderball. My blog, my opinions.
License to Kill came out at a time when Latin American drug cartels were in the news and entertainment media quite a bit. Miami Vice used the motif of Colombian cocaine traffickers, scoundrels and murderers, "Colombian punks," Rico calls them, Rico played by Philip Michael Thomas opposite Don Johnson as Crockett.
So the drug lord in this film (Robert Davi at his cold best) has a big operation going on as well as a pet iguana. He gets arrested but sprung from the van transferring him to prison. His operation involves cocaine but it's bigger than that, but I'm honestly unaware of what his business is besides drugs. He's cruel and sadistic, blows up a guy in a pressure chamber, head explodes, and the doomed guy is kneeling on the pile of money for which he betrayed his boss who presses the button rapidly decompressing the chamber housing the man whose head grows like a balloon, exploding while Bond watches from a point of concealment.
I don't know if this would happen in a decompression chamber, but it was the second grossest scene. Benicio Del Toro is a psychopath, a vicious shit employee of the drug lord, Sanchez. Picture Benicio Del Toro before his face got craggy. Smooth and suave Benicio, that's what I'm describing, but playing a sadistic little fuckface you're just waiting to find out how he'll exit the picture. And he does.
Benicio Del Toro chases Bond through a factory in operation processing whatever. The two fight it out on a conveyor belt leading to a whirling grinding shredder below, big and thick relentless gears spinning, a blur of fast heavy metal. Bond, hanging first over the maw, has a grip on the conveyor belt's underlying structure. He grabs Benicio Del Toro by the clothes and trades places with the unfortunate psychopath. Now Benicio Del Toro hangs on by two hands, then one, by his fingers. His shoe starts to skitter as the blade ends impact it and begin to gouge the leather. A plaintive "No," emits from his mouth, the last word before the wordless screams.
The whirling blades grab ahold of his shoe, his foot's grinding and mangling produce the first scream. Even Bond is moved to pity, perhaps. There are fates worse than being shot. The maw chunkily grabs Benicio Del Toro at the thighs and soon he's not screaming, he's not even solid, but a crimson mist. No need for a burial detail, just a man with a hose.
The film moves well, the technology isn't of particular standout quality. I don't recall a fancy car or much beyond the film's energy, with is ongoing throughout. Talisa Soto and Carey Lowell both look good, fulfilling the basic condition of a Bond girl. One of the weirdest acts of casting in the film is Wayne Newton as a cult leader. He turns out to be a horndog preacher type with a predilection for females. Carey Lowell draws her gun on him, fires into the wall near his head to keep him away from her. It's a scene as exciting as I've just described it.
I saw this film several nights ago. It's receded from me plot-wise; I can barely remember it. Figure it has to be Bond versus Adversary, Bond Wins, Bond Makes Out. This is a good one, though. The brutal force of the violent scenes reflect realities of the late 1980s: cocaine, drug lords, people in Colombia cut up with chainsaws, CIA interference, Death Squads supported by the U.S., and MI-6 (Bond's agency) and in the film a sickening nod to the DEA, corrupt arm of the War on Drugs, that killer conflict cutting into the heart of African-American and Hispanic societies, supplying prisons with inmates to drive the money machine of the prison industrial complex. All that's too much for a Bond movie, even a good one.
Still, License To Kill is worth another look if you've already seen and possibly judged it. Dalton made a good Bond.
Shaking things up in the Bond appreciation fellowship I declare here that License to Kill (1989), with Timothy Dalton as Agent 007, Bond James Bond, is the second best Bond film. The best is Thunderball. My blog, my opinions.
License to Kill came out at a time when Latin American drug cartels were in the news and entertainment media quite a bit. Miami Vice used the motif of Colombian cocaine traffickers, scoundrels and murderers, "Colombian punks," Rico calls them, Rico played by Philip Michael Thomas opposite Don Johnson as Crockett.
So the drug lord in this film (Robert Davi at his cold best) has a big operation going on as well as a pet iguana. He gets arrested but sprung from the van transferring him to prison. His operation involves cocaine but it's bigger than that, but I'm honestly unaware of what his business is besides drugs. He's cruel and sadistic, blows up a guy in a pressure chamber, head explodes, and the doomed guy is kneeling on the pile of money for which he betrayed his boss who presses the button rapidly decompressing the chamber housing the man whose head grows like a balloon, exploding while Bond watches from a point of concealment.
I don't know if this would happen in a decompression chamber, but it was the second grossest scene. Benicio Del Toro is a psychopath, a vicious shit employee of the drug lord, Sanchez. Picture Benicio Del Toro before his face got craggy. Smooth and suave Benicio, that's what I'm describing, but playing a sadistic little fuckface you're just waiting to find out how he'll exit the picture. And he does.
Benicio Del Toro chases Bond through a factory in operation processing whatever. The two fight it out on a conveyor belt leading to a whirling grinding shredder below, big and thick relentless gears spinning, a blur of fast heavy metal. Bond, hanging first over the maw, has a grip on the conveyor belt's underlying structure. He grabs Benicio Del Toro by the clothes and trades places with the unfortunate psychopath. Now Benicio Del Toro hangs on by two hands, then one, by his fingers. His shoe starts to skitter as the blade ends impact it and begin to gouge the leather. A plaintive "No," emits from his mouth, the last word before the wordless screams.
The whirling blades grab ahold of his shoe, his foot's grinding and mangling produce the first scream. Even Bond is moved to pity, perhaps. There are fates worse than being shot. The maw chunkily grabs Benicio Del Toro at the thighs and soon he's not screaming, he's not even solid, but a crimson mist. No need for a burial detail, just a man with a hose.
The film moves well, the technology isn't of particular standout quality. I don't recall a fancy car or much beyond the film's energy, with is ongoing throughout. Talisa Soto and Carey Lowell both look good, fulfilling the basic condition of a Bond girl. One of the weirdest acts of casting in the film is Wayne Newton as a cult leader. He turns out to be a horndog preacher type with a predilection for females. Carey Lowell draws her gun on him, fires into the wall near his head to keep him away from her. It's a scene as exciting as I've just described it.
I saw this film several nights ago. It's receded from me plot-wise; I can barely remember it. Figure it has to be Bond versus Adversary, Bond Wins, Bond Makes Out. This is a good one, though. The brutal force of the violent scenes reflect realities of the late 1980s: cocaine, drug lords, people in Colombia cut up with chainsaws, CIA interference, Death Squads supported by the U.S., and MI-6 (Bond's agency) and in the film a sickening nod to the DEA, corrupt arm of the War on Drugs, that killer conflict cutting into the heart of African-American and Hispanic societies, supplying prisons with inmates to drive the money machine of the prison industrial complex. All that's too much for a Bond movie, even a good one.
Still, License To Kill is worth another look if you've already seen and possibly judged it. Dalton made a good Bond.
Vic Neptune
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