Licence to Kill (1989) | Villains

Like everything else in Licence to Kill, Sanchez is intentionally unconventional for a Bond film. He wouldn't ordinarily even be in Bond's league. He's not trying to take over the world or anything; he's the kind of guy who ought to be fighting Arnold Schwarzenneger or the A-Team. But because Bond's been de-powered in Licence, Sanchez is a tougher threat.

Robert Davi was typecast in these kinds of roles in the '80s, but I like him a lot. Sanchez is abominable in most ways, but he can be charming too. His downfall is the result of a defect in his character - that he's over-emotional and impulsive - which is as it should be. Bond ultimately gets to him just by finding his buttons and pushing them over and over again.

Not a complaint about the character, but another ding against the movie is the stinger missile plot. It's tacked on to give Pam something extra to do and provide a prop for the finale, but it doesn't have anything to do with the main story and the stakes around it aren't very high.



Sanchez' chief henchman is Dario, played by Benicio Del Toro. I'm hot and cold on Del Toro in general, but Licence is one of the movies where I really like him. He doesn't have to do much more than look terrifying and he does that well. He's not fleshed out enough to crack my Top Ten Henchmen, but I sort of don't want him to be. He's not one of the greats, but he's perfectly effective at what he's supposed to be doing.



Sanchez' organization is way more detailed than we usually see in a Bond movie. As I was compiling my list of Licence's henchmen, I realized how many underlings Sanchez has that not only have speaking parts, but are also integral to his business. There's the accountant Truman-Lodge and the head of security Heller, but also government agents like Ed Killifer and President Lopez who are in Sanchez' pocket. I'm not going to comment on all of them individually though.

One who does deserve a closer look is Milton Krest, partly because he's a Fleming character who was repurposed for Licence. The movie version doesn't have much in common with the book version though except that they're both slimy boat-owners who hunt for ocean animals. And Movie Krest is super slimy. Anthony Zerbe does a great job with him. His connection to Sanchez makes him blustery and brave around most people, but he's also clearly frightened of his boss. I love Krest's conversations with Lupe where she knows how to use Krest's fear against him. And I especially love Zerbe's performance when Sanchez interrogates him about the missing money. Krest has a drink in his hand and Zerbe plays him just slightly sloshed, hinting at other character flaws that are never explicitly stated.



Also not exactly a henchman, but in need of mention of Wayne Newton as Professor Joe. He makes no sense to Sanchez' operation, but Newton is so funny and awesomely cheesy that it just doesn't matter. I love every second he's on screen. Bless his heart.

Top Ten Villains

1. Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger)
2. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Never Say Never Again)
3. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (From Russia With Love and Thunderball)
4. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
5. Maximilian Largo (Never Say Never Again)
6. Francisco Scaramanga (The Man with the Golden Gun)
7. Dr. Kananga (Live and Let Die)
8. Doctor No (Dr. No)
9. General Gogol (For Your Eyes Only)
10. Karl Stromberg (The Spy Who Loved Me)

Top Ten Henchmen

1. Baron Samedi (Live and Let Die)
2. Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
3. Grant (From Russia with Love)
4. Nick Nack (The Man with the Golden Gun)
5. Gobinda (Octopussy)
6. May Day (A View to a Kill)
7. Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker)
8. Naomi (The Spy Who Loved Me)
9. Oddjob (Goldfinger)
10. Necros (The Living Daylights)

Thunderball by Ian Fleming

The creation of Thunderball is notoriously complicated. If most of For Your Eyes Only was the result of Fleming’s trying to bring Bond back to television, Thunderball was the result of his trying to get a film made. In late 1958, he teamed up with a few people including Irish writer/director Kevin McClory, hoping to create a Bond movie. Fleming and McClory weren’t the only people involved, but they were the two who ended up in court, so I’ll focus on them. Not that I’m going to spend much time on that drama, but it’s important to see how the book developed.

According to Wikipedia, Fleming’s confidence in the potential movie fluctuated throughout its development, in part because one of McClory’s other movies bombed at the box office around that same time. So Fleming was more involved at some times and less at others, but between him and the other writers, close to a dozen different treatments, outlines, and scripts were created with lots of different titles. It’s impossible to verify who created what exactly, especially when it comes to the story’s most famous contributions to Bond lore: Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE. Though the courts gave those elements to McClory for years, there’s a strong case to be made for Fleming’s contributing to them, especially since Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia with Love clearly show that he had a fondness for the word “spectre.”

Regardless of who contributed how much and which parts, Fleming was certainly on ethically shaky ground when he turned the collaboration into a novel with just his name on it. Once McClory got wind of that, he petitioned the courts to stop publication. That was denied, but the courts left the door open for McClory to pursue later action, starting a long, bitter feud between him and Fleming (as well as future caretakers of Bond’s adventures).

For Your Eyes Only | "The Hildebrand Rarity"

"The Hildebrand Rarity" was published in Playboy just a month before For Your Eyes Only came out. In it, Bond is in the Seychelles Islands (northeast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean), having just finished a security check for the British Navy. Most of the stories in For Your Eyes Only occur while Bond's hanging out after some routine mission ("Risico" and "For Your Eyes Only" being the exceptions) and this time Bond has a few days to kill before a ship arrives to take him home.

We already know from Live and Let Die that Bond's an accomplished diver, and that's how he's spending his time on his break. When a buddy of his on the islands gets an opportunity to help an American philanthropist track down a rare fish - the Hildebrand Rarity - for the Smithsonian, the buddy recommends that Bond come along too. (Side note for Creature from the Black Lagoon fans: the plan is to use Rotenone to catch the fish.) Unfortunately, the wealthy Milton Krest is a first class jerk who insults his guests and uses his charitable foundation to write off pleasure expenses. Most heinous though, he has a habit of beating his wife Elizabeth with a stingray tail when she displeases him.

Bond connects with Elizabeth, partly because she's British, but mostly because she seriously needs a friend. This is what I love most about "The Hildebrand Rarity" and one of the reasons it's my favorite in the collection. Elizabeth is beautiful, but there's not the usual sexual tension between her and Bond. I mean there is tension there, but it comes from knowing how Bond usually interacts with beautiful women and from knowing that Milton Krest is a dangerous man to offend. If Bond acts as he usually does, life on Krest's yacht is probably going to become deadly.

But that's not what happens and Bond simply befriends the woman. Her nervousness and unsuccessfully concealed desperation touch Bond and turn him into a listening ear for her. He becomes an oasis of comfort and normality in the life of fear that she's leading, which is a really odd role for him to take. But he wears it well and it's another great example of the post-Dr No Bond at work.