Plot
James Bond discovers that his recent assistance in a deflecting KGB agent to the west was a sham, and he now must assist in his capture.
Direction
Directed by long time 007 aficionado John Glen. This is the fourth film he directed.
Cast
Timothy Dalton takes over the role of James Bond, in his first of his two films. I genuinely liked his take on the character, and it felt more ‘real’ than other films of the past.
Maryam d’Abo plays Kara Milovy – who Bond works with to locate Koskov, the ‘missing’ former KGB agent.
Joe Don Baker plays Whitaker, an arms dealer working with
Koskov, and one of the primary antagonists.
John Rhys-Davies plays General Puskin – the head of the KGB.
Art Malik plays Kamran Shah – the leader of an Afghani group called the Mujahideen, who Bond works with at one point.
Jeroen Krabbe plays Koskov, the General who fakes his deflection from Russia to the West.
Breakdown
In the fifteenth film overall, Timothy Dalton takes over the role from Roger Moore. Dalton himself was 40 here, taking over from Moore who was 58 in his last film. This take on Bond feels more serious than previous iterations. I really enjoyed his take on the character.
The plot, which Bond assists a “rogue KGB” agent Georgi Koskov (showing the age of the film with both the country and the agency…) deflect from his native USSR to the west.
This sets about a tangled web of double crosses with Bond, the new KGB boss Pushkin, and an American arms dealer Brad Whitaker, which all comes out when Bond discovers that Koskov faked his deflection, and is actually working against all of them.
The one “Bond Girl” is Kara Milovy, who is Koskov’s girlfriend. This is the first Bond girl to feel as an much of an equal to Bond in way of writing since Tracy in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The fact that there is little to no physical connection between Bond and Kara make this the most ‘modern’ of all the Bond films since that one (in my opinion). I’d go to say, that Dalton is to date my favourite Bond next to Lazenby. There I said it
Older characters in the franchise Q and Gogol both appear once again (played by Desmold Llewelyn and Walter Gotell respectively). The ‘new’ M played by Robert Brown (in his fourth of his five appearances as the character) is overshadowed by other performers that you don’t really get a sense of urgency of his character. Caroline Bliss takes over the role of Moneypenny from Lois Maxwell, but she too is almost “blink and you’ll miss her”. Do I miss the sexual chemistry between Moneypenny and Bond??? No.
The villain’s plan is significantly modern too (buying drugs from an Afghanistan group), and has a pretty solid action sequence with both a gun shootout and Bond battling it out with a secondary villain while hanging out of the back of a plane mid flight.
The mid movie investigations, the usual cannon fodder Bond assistant (poor Saunders), and Bond making his errors (thinking Kara is in on it, while she is being pursued by the bad guys herself). I loved the ‘friendship’ that blossomed between Bond and Pushkin – and his death fake out to bring out the real bad guys. Classic – and complemented by Rhys Davies performance (even if his accent is a little on the nose).
Overall
Dalton’s first outing as the MI6 agent is a solid one, with less reliance on gimmick, and more so on narrative.
The ‘less cartoony’ villain plan is more in line with the 1980s archetype of movie villain, which is a bonus.
Shame he only has one more appearance, I like Dalton in the role. A strong recommend.
4/5
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