FAQ

Dancey McGee

When, on his wedding night, ex-CIA agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison) (now with the Drug Enforcement Administration) is fed to a great white shark and his wife Della (Priscilla Barnes) is raped and murdered by thugs working for Latin American drug lord Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi), 007 agent James Bond (Timothy Dalton) defies direct orders from MI6 chief M (Robert Brown), surrenders his gun and license to kill, and goes rogue in order to infiltrate the drug organization and seek revenge against Sanchez. Aided by Leiter's CIA friend Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) along with Sanchez' mistress Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto), Bond soon learns that there is much more to it than his personal vendetta.

All of the James Bond movies from 1962 until 1990, and again from 2006 onward, are based, in some part, upon novels or stories by British author Ian Fleming [1908-1964]. Although Licence to Kill is the first Bond film not to take its title or overall storyline from an original James Bond story, there are some elements of Fleming's works in the movie. The scenes with Felix Leiter being fed to a shark, Bond's revenge against the man most directly responsible for maiming Felix, and Franz Sanchez and his minions hiding smuggled drugs inside fish tanks were taken from the original novel of Live and Let Die (1954). In the book, however, Leiter loses his arm as well as parts of his leg, and in subsequent books, he has a prosthesis. Also, in the original novel, the villain (an Afro-Caribbean spymaster working for the Russians) is smuggling recovered pirate treasure instead of drugs. The character of Milton Krest (Anthony Zerbe) and his yacht the Wavekrest was featured in "The Hildebrand Rarity", a short story in For Your Eyes Only (1960), a collection of five James Bond short stories. Krest's weapon of choice—a stingray tail used as a whip—was given to the film's villain, Sanchez. The remainder of the film is from an original screenplay crafted by American screenwriters Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum. The screenplay was subsequently novelized by John Gardner.

The title song, Licence to Kill, is performed by American soul singer Gladys Knight. The song that plays during the closing credits is If You Asked Me To, performed by American R&B singer Patti LaBelle.

The movie starts with Bond, Felix Leiter, and Sharkey (Frank McRae) driving across Hwy 1 from the Florida mainland to the West Keys where Bond is going to be best man at Felix's wedding. After Felix is severely wounded by Sanchez, Bond vows to avenge him. His vendetta takes him to the Bahamas, first to Cay Sal Bank where he boards the Wavekrest looking for Sanchez, then to the Barrelhead Bar on the island of Bimini where he links up with Felix's informant Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell). From there, Bond and Pam travel to the fictitious Isthmus City (said to be patterned after Panama) where they wreak havoc on Sanchez's drug trade.

Earlier in the movie, during the wedding scenes, Felix asks Bond to hand him Della's framed photo. As Bond watches, Felix slips the disk behind it.

The Olympatec Meditation Institute (OMI), a cover for Sanchez's cocaine manufacturing plant.

To obtain a PG-13 rating, some scenes of Licence to Kill had been altered. This version was later on published on VHS as well and an uncensored version of this movie was unavailable. Even the first DVD editions were cut and for years, and only some LaserDisc releases were completely uncensored. With the Ultimate Edition reissues on DVD the uncut version finally made its way to DVD as well.