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Timothy Dalton's meaner Bond takes aim in top Bond Film The Living Daylights |
Director: John Glen
Cast: Timothy Dalton (James Bond), Maryam D’Abo (Kara
Milovy), Jeroen Krabbé (General Georgi Koskov), Joe Don Baker (Brad Whitaker),
John Rhys-Davies (General Leonid Pushkin), Art Malik (Kamran Shah), Andreas
Wisniewski (Necros), Thomas Wheatley (Saunders), Robert Brown (M), Demons Llewellyn
(Q), Geoffrey Keen (Minister of Defence), Caroline Bliss (Miss Moneypenny),
John Terry (Felix Leiter), Walter Gotell (General Gogol)
After A View to a Kill,
even the Bond producers realised something had to change. Roger Moore at 60, was
definitely too long in the tooth to still be the debonair super spy. The
producers were quick to land their first choice – TV’s Remington Steele star, Pierce Brosnan. But a last-minute renewal of
the cancelled show meant Brosnan was out – and the producers turned to one of
the first choices when Connery left: Timothy Dalton. Dalton had considered
himself too young in 1969, but the stars aligned now. So we had a new Bond – a
younger, sleeker, meaner model. To quote that other franchise with a revolving
lead: Change my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon…
James Bond (Timothy Dalton) is tasked to protect a defecting
Russian general, Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé), but during the mission he
refuses to take the life of Kara Milovy (Maryam D’Abo), a cello player from the
Viennese orchestra turned sniper, whom he believes to be nothing but an
amateur. When Koskov is snatched by mysterious forces, Bond must trace his only
link to Koskov: Kara Milovy, who he quickly discovers is Koskov’s lover. Soon
he questions the legitimacy of the defection – and the links to sinister
American arms dealer Brad Whittaker (Joe Don Baker).
First and foremost, this is Timothy Dalton’s film. His Bond
was something so radically different from Moore that, to a certain extent, the
public wasn’t ready for it. Dalton went right back to Fleming’s books, and
brought to the screen for the first time a Bond who actually feels like the
character of the novel: world-weary, cynical, reluctant (even bitter), a man on
the edge of anger with a darkness behind the charm. When Bond is threatened by
being reported to M by his colleague Saunders (an excellent Thomas Wheatley), he
snaps in response: “If
he fires me, I’ll thank him for it”. Can anyone imagine Moore or Connery
saying that?
He’s also a man capable of genuine emotion and loyalty, who
forms friendships and relationships throughout the film that we haven’t really
seen before. Sure some of the comic elements feel shaped more for Moore’s lips
than Dalton’s, but Dalton’s Bond made everything feel more grounded than the
overblown later Moore movies. To put it bluntly, Dalton makes Bond feel like a
human being, not just a super-hero. There’s a reason he’s been called the best
actor to take on the role. He treats it like an acting job. He might be the
best Bond.
This works particularly interestingly as this film is a sort
of half-way-house between a Moore film and an early Connery film. The tone of
the film is kept relatively light (a key chain that works via a wolf whistle! Skiing
down a slope on a cello case!), but the villains of the piece are relatively
low key (they want to make a killing on drug deals) and there is a nice mix
between some exciting (but not over the top) stunts and an almost Hitchcockian
feel.
This Hitchcock feel is not least in the (rather sweet)
romance between Bond and Kara, with its Notorious
feel of a man manipulating a woman while genuinely growing to care for her.
Setting most of these scenes in a romantically shot Vienna also helps
enormously, with its noirish Third Man feel.
Unlike many other Bonds, the relationship here between Bond and the girl feels
like a genuine romance. Kara may be a bit of a damsel in distress, but she
feels like a warm-hearted, decent person wrapped up in events beyond her
experience. And although audiences at the time, accustomed to Moore and
Connery’s unending conquests, were critical of the reduction in Bond’s sexual
adventures, making him less promiscuous results in Bond feeling like much more
of a jaded romantic than a casual philanderer, and makes his relationship with
Kara much more resonant.
The whole film feels much more grounded in reality, without
losing a sense of fun. The film does its action sequences extraordinarily well.
The car chase through snowy Austria is brilliantly done (the car gets a series
of stand out gadgets), with Dalton delivering each new revelation of the car
with a winning dryness. This sequence develops into the brilliantly funny cello-case
skiing sequence (“We’ve nothing to declare!”/”Except a cello!”). Again, the
sequence works so well because it is skilfully counterbalanced with the almost
Le Carre-ish piece of spycraft Bond uses first to get Kara out from the under
noses of her KGB watchers.
Interestingly, one of its most striking sequences doesn’t
even involve Bond: that plaudit has to go to the thrilling one-man assault by
unstoppable ubermensch Necros on the
MI6 house where Koskov is being held. A particular showcase here is the brutal
kitchen fight between Necros and an MI6 officer, surely the greatest fight in
the series not to feature Bond (and all the more exciting as you don’t know what could happen to these characters),
plus it’s great to see someone in MI6 other than Bond being able to handle
themselves.
The final major sequence of the film, with Necros and Bond fighting
while clinging for their lives to a net, dangling out the back of a plane, is a
truly striking action set-piece, a real vertigo inducing stand-out. If you can put
to one side in your head the fact that Bond’s key allies during the whole
Afghanistan sequence of this film are basically Al-Qaida in an earlier form
(with Art Malik’s charming Kamran Shah basically exactly the sort of man who
went on to become Osama Bin-Laden), and you can enjoy the sequence for its
terrific excitement.
The weaknesses of the film are in its structure. Both
villains (and their plot) are underwhelming. Koskov is something very different
– charming, feckless, manipulative (he’s quite well played by Krabbé) – but hardly
much of a threat, and he drops out of the film for a chunk in the middle. Joe
Don Baker’s Whittaker is too distant from the central plot for him to earn his
role as Bond’s final antagonist. It feels like the writers have split one
character into two – a Koskov who hid Whittaker’s ruthlessness and bullying
under a charming, foolish veneer might have really worked. Their plan is
grounded in a reassuring reality, but it never feels like that big a deal. Its
complexity is also probably a little too great for the narrow focus the film
gives it. The final Whittaker-Bond confrontation is underwhelming considering
what we’ve seen before.
But that is because this is Dalton’s film – or, if you like,
a Bond film focused on Bond. From the stirring introduction on a training
mission parachuting into Gibraltar, Dalton seizes the film by the scruff of the
neck. Unlike nearly any other Bond film before now, this feels like one about
the type of man Bond is – the killer with a well-hidden heart, the cynic who
believes in his cause. He has great chemistry with his fellow actors – not
least John Rhys-Davies, excellent as General Pushkin – and above all romantic
chemistry with Maryam d’Abo.
The humour allows us to warm to Bond, while the darkness
Dalton brings to the role helps us invest emotionally in his more tortured
interpretation. All else aside, TLD
is damn good fun with some excellent action sequences and a terrific score.
It’s very much in the upper echelon of Bond films.
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