Bondathon: The Living Daylights

As the 80s soldiered on, one Bond actor left, and another came in.

Even after the mixed press about A View to a Kill, EON, now running under the name United Artists, still wanted Roger Moore to come back for one more film. But he (thankfully) declined. With no other choice, the big wigs at Pinewood went searching for an actor, and one name kept on popping up in everyone’s mind: Pierce Brosnan.

Brosnan, a northern Irish actor, was most famous for his role as TV detective Remington Steele at the time, a character that had a cool charm very similar to our much loved secret agent. People in the U.S.A. and most of Europe clamored for Brosnan to get the role, and it seemed like a perfect time, as Remington Steele reviews were at their lowest, and it seemed like the series would come to an end. So, after the latest season in 1985, NBC gave a 60 day trial to the show producers to make up their mind whether to extend the show or end Brosnan’s contract, giving him the opportunity to do Bond. Well, 59 days passed with no decision. Then, on the last minute of the 60^th day, as UA and Brosnan were preparing the announcement of the next Bond film, Remington Steele’s producer’s suddenly decided to renew the contract. Brosnan was swallowed up again, and UA had to settle with their next best choice: Timothy Dalton.

Now, Dalton was no slouch in the acting game, having been a Shakespearean actor for nearly twenty years, starring in mostly small albeit very critically acclaimed roles. This definitely wasn’t his first time toying around with the Bond franchise either, having been offered the role for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Octopussy, and A View to a Kill. The guy had chops, no doubt, and he was definitely going to show them. The amount of preparation that he took when going into this role was phenomenal (he apparently read all of Fleming’s books while on set to get into character), and he promised to portray a Bond that was finally true to what the creator crafted. Was this all worth it? Let’s see…here’s 1987’s The Living Daylights.

The film begins with a standard pre-credits scene as three 00-agents drop down through the skies of Gibraltar on a training mission. As the agents land, one of them is, “killed,” by one of the nearby SAS agents. A second one lands and hoists up to begin climbing a cliff face, when another man, disguised as an agent, lands on the cliff above. He clips a note reading, “Smiert Spionam,” onto the cord and slides it down to the climbing agent, then he cuts the rope, killing the agent. This is when we finally see our star of the film, James Bond, turn to face his falling comrade. Bond springs into action, making chase after the mysterious man as he hops into a nearby Land Rover. Bond leaps onto the top, attempting to attack with a knife through the roof and other means, but with no avail. He manages to get inside and fight the offending man before driving off a cliff and Bond parachutes out in time before the truck explodes.

After the credits (and another great song, this time by a-ha), we find Bond attending a concert in Bratislava. He is approached by MI6’s Saunders, and they both go over certain notes about the mission ahead. As the concert breaks for intermission, they leave and head across the street to a closed out shop, and go upstairs to a sniper look out. Bond prepares himself and his weapon, and sets up at the window to keep an eye out for any offending snipers as his target, Soviet General Georgi Koskov (Jerome Krabbe) leaves the concert hall and makes his way to the shop. Bond spots one sniper, a woman, and makes a quick judgment call by shooting the gun she was holding rather than her, believing she wasn’t a professional.

Bond drives Koskov to the Trans-Siberian Pipeline center in Bratislava, where he puts Koskov into a, “pig,” (cleaning module) and sends him off to Austra to be greeted by Q and the team. Bond then drives back to pick up Saunders, who is furious about the way Bond handled the mission, berating him for not killing the sniper. Bond quickly retorts to Saunders that he only kills professionals, and that he was sure the girl didn’t know anything about what she was doing. Saunders threatens a report to M, to which Bond replies: “Go ahead, tell him what you want. If he fires me, I’ll thank him for it” (which I think is one of the best quotes out of this whole series.

Upon returning to London, he tells Moneypenney (now played by Caroline Bliss), to start searching for any and all of the KGB’s female killers before heading out to the firm’s country safe house to debrief with Koskov, M, and the Minister of Defence. Koskov plants the blame for his defection on Leonid Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies), the new head of KGB in the U.S.S.R., saying that he has implemented a new program called, “Smiert Spionam,” or death to spies, which calls for the assassination of various western spies. Koskov of course defected to warn the British and for them to send someone to kill Pushkin before the program leads to nuclear war. M claims they need time to consider the options, and he, the minister, and Bond all leave the house. After the latter leave, a KGB officer in disguise as a milkman uses a set of explosive milk bottles to break into the safe house and makes off with Koskov after killing a few MI6 operatives and causing a great amount of destruction.

Furious after losing Koskov, M sends a hesitant Bond out to take care of Pushkin. Bond first makes a stop in Bratislava to investigate the sniper girl, identified by Moneypenney as Kara Milovy (Miryam d’Abo), a cellist at the local orchestra. Bond tails Kara for a while before watching her being taken away by the KGB. He takes her left behind cello case and finds her sniper rifle inside. The next day, as Kara returns to her apartment, Bond walks up, telling her he’s with Koskov, who turns out to be Kara’s boyfriend. It’s also revealed that Koskov’s defection was set-up, so Bond now has to figure out who’s on whose side.

Bond and Kara escape Bratislava in Bond’s gadget-laden Aston Martin V8 Vantage, but are quickly found out by the KGB. As they’re driving through the snow-capped mountains, Czechoslovakian police patrolling the border spot them and turn around to give chase. This leads to one of the most thrilling scenes in the whole movie. Bond weaves his car about, using fantastic gadgetry to evade the police, leading up to literally rocketing over a police post and into a pile of snow. The pair finally escapes across the border using Kara’s cello case as a means of transportation.

The movie cuts to a compound outside of Tangier as General Pushkin arrives, seeking Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker), an illegal arms dealer. The two originally had a deal set for Pushkin to receive new and high tech weaponry from Whitaker for a generous amount. Due to a bit of mistrust, however, Pushkin demands the deal to be cancelled and tells Whitaker to return the money in a few days or he’ll be shut down, “for good.” Furious, Whitaker calls in two of his people: Georgi Koskov, who is safe and sound, enjoying the lovely, “sights,” of Tangier, and the KGB agent, known as Necros. Whitaker swears to the both of them that Pushkin needs to be rid of so his plan to smuggle and opium into the west isn’t jeopardized. Koskov swears to Whitaker that the British have sent Bond to kill Pushkin, and to only give it some time. Whitaker then sends Necros out, ordering him to kill Pushkin if Bond doesn’t take care of it, and in the mean time, kill another spy to send a message.

Meanwhile in Vienna, Bond and Kara are attending the opera, when Saunders reappears, at Bond’s request. They set up a meeting date for later, as Bond wants to find out more information about how Koskov purchased Kara’s cello and what exactly happened back at the safe house. After some time at a nearby fair, and a kiss on the Ferris wheel, Bond meets with Saunders, who reveals that Whitaker was the one who purchased the cello at auction, not Koskov. This sets off an explosion in Bond’s mind, who suddenly realizes the depth of the situation. He thanks Saunders for the information, and sends him off. Then, suddenly, Necros sets off a bomb in the café door, causing it to shut early and crush Saunders in between. Bond rushes over and sees a balloon floating by with the words, “Smiert Spionam,” written on it, and oh my. The true acting prowess of Dalton comes out in this scene. The dark anger that wells in the way he grabs the balloon and pops it in his hands and then runs after any sight of a balloon nearby justifies how I feel about him…but…more on that later.

Bond and Kara travel to Tangier with the intention of Bond finally taking out Pushkin. As Pushkin enters his hotel room to find his girl being held hostage by Bond, who interrogates Pushkin about Smiert Spionam. Pushkin swears that it is an old and outdated program, and that Koskov should be the one that the British are after, as he is wanted for misusing government funds. Bond finds an alliance with Pushkin and they both decide the only way to get close to Pushkin is by staging his death. The next day at Pushkin’s conference at Tangier, Bond shoots at Pushkin, who is wearing a bulletproof vest, and escapes, evading the police and finding his way into the arms of Felix Leiter (John Terry), who demands an explanation. After receiving one, he lets Bond be on his way.

When Bond returns to his hotel room with Kara, she gives him a drink. It turns out the drink is poisoned, and as he falls to the floor, Koskov comes into the room, and it’s revealed that Kara called Koskov, demanding answers to everything. Koskov kidnaps Bond and takes him and Kara to an airport, where, described as a doctor, he uses Bond as a cover for a heart transplant patient while he smuggles diamonds inside the replacement heart’s cooler. When they arrive in Afghanistan, Koskov turns on Kara, sending her and Bond to a military prison for murder and defection.

After a fight with a (rather rude) prison attendant, Bond and Kara escape the prison and the base with assistance by an unknown resistance fighter (Art Malik). The fighter and the rest of his troops take Bond and Kara back to their compound in the desert, where he reveals himself to be Kamran Shah of the Muhajideen. Shah listens to Bond’s proposal, and says he swears he can’t do anything, but if Bond accompanies him to a mission the next morning, he will see if he can help in some way.

The next day, Bond and Kara ride out with Shah and the Muhajideen to their meeting: an opium sale to Koskov, who is using the diamonds as payment. Bond quickly deduces that Koskov wants the opium to sell on the streets, making him a millionaire and providing him with funds to purchase more high-tech weaponry for Whitaker, and that the only way to stop Koskov is by sabotage. Shah provides Bond with an explosive, which he plants in one of the opium batches before riding to the base with the shipment with Kara, Shah, and the Muhajideen following. Bond plants the rigged batch onto the plane and walks out in clear view of Koskov and Necros, and a final battle between Muhajideen and Soviet forces breaks out on the base.

Bond takes this fire as an advantage and makes way to the controls of the plane and starts to take off. While driving down the runway, Kara commandeers a deserted Jeep and follows after, and as Bond tells her to drive the Jeep into the supply ram, she seems confused at first, but soon understands the message. Meanwhile, Koskov drives Necros up to the plane’s closing hatch and he manages to hop on before Koskov himself crashes into a landing plane, barely surviving the incident. While in the air, Bond goes back to defuse the bomb, but is immediately attacked by Necros. As the two tussle in the back, Kara tries to make things easier on Bond by opening the hatch to make Necros flies out…leading to the both of them hanging onto the netted opium shipment for dear life. Necros grabs onto Bond’s boot, but Bond quickly acts, cutting his laces, making Necros fall to his death. Bond climbs back on board and defuses the bomb, flies back towards the base, drops the bomb to help the Muhajideen, and then escapes the fuel-starved plane before it crashes.

The next scene shows Felix aiding Bond as he sneaks into Whitaker’s Tangier compound. After Bond enters, he comes across Whitaker using a diorama to re-enact a famous Civil War fight, “the way he’d do it,” before Whitaker strikes, using a machine gun with a bulletproof shield. Bond evades and quickly places an explosive device given to him by Q. As he hides behind the wall, he activates the explosive charge and a bust of the Duke of Wellington falls onto Whitaker, killing him. Bond quips, “He met his Waterloo.” The film then ends with a concert performance by Kara, with her and Bond eloping at the end.

God, I don’t even know where to start. This movie…is one of the best damn movies in this franchise. Curse the Broccolis for not taking Dalton in earlier, because the sheer amount of talent and cool this guy gives off is so much better than most of the men to ever take the role. He always looks composed and calm, and always had a way out of a situation, and I LOVED how he took the role to a darker place than his predecessor.

Even without Dalton, the movie is fantastic. The plot is thrilling and the story flows from each exotic location from the next, each tying in in some way so it doesn’t feel like the filmmakers just wanted to go somewhere nice and fancy. The rest of the cast adds to it even more. Miryam D’Abo does a decent job at being a damsel in distress, and Jerome Krabbe and Joe Don Baker both portray a decent amount of difference between the two, while still pushing a great on-screen chemistry.

You just don’t get very many films like this in this franchise, one that goes down so smoothly and just feels so refreshing to watch. Dalton is undoubtedly my favorite Bond for this reason, and the next film as well, because with all this camp that surrounds these movies, it’s just nice to get some realism. Something you can believe. And that’s why The Living Daylights gets 5 out of 5 stars. Next week, you can watch me decide whether Licence to Kill deserves to be in the Bondathon category, in the My Favorite Movies category, or the Most Underrated Movies category.