The Living Daylights: A Review.

22nd January, 2019.

Yes: I was definitely feeling grotty, this morning.

Frankly?   Too much cooking oil, last night … ?



All day, now I think of it.

Triggered my IBS.

I really should I’m not a seventeen year old — with a seventeen year old’s cast iron stomach — any more!

Thankfully … ?

Thankfully, I managed to stay in, all day: I really didn’t want to go too far away from the toilet.

Equally, thankfully?

I had an old friend over, picking up some backed up files … 

Who turned up with some really good home made bread.

That made for some great old-fashioned doorstop toast, with Marmite … 

~≈§≈~

At any rate … ?

At any rate, I’ve been in, all day.

Thinking I’ve movies in storage I’d like to see.

And thinking … that I’d never actually seen Timothy Dalton’s second outing as James Bond.

The menacingly named Licence To Kill.

What did I end up doing?

Watching The Living Daylights!

Fancy a mix up, any one … ?

~≈§≈~

The Living Daylights opens above the skies of Gibraltar: where the 00 section of MI6 are on a training mission.

Parachuting into Gibraltar, for a war game.

Only for three of the four agents survive … 

007, himself (Timothy Dalton) … 

~≈§≈~

We move to the (then) Czechoslovakia: where Bond is to assassinate a sniper: a sniper targeting the defecting General Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé*).

THEN get the General over the border.

Only to find the sniper is the cellist, Kara Milovy (Maryam D’Abo): hopelessly in love with the man she’s supposed to shoot, hopeless with a rifle … 

And — in Bond’s eyes — a hopeless amateur that doesn’t deserve killing.

So he shoot’s to wound.

And, in the aftermath of this … 

Gets General Koskoz out of Bratislava.

It’s only with the General in a safe house in the UK, that M (Robert Brown) to start debriefing him.

Not knowing that the milkman … has been replaced … 

~≈§≈~

Now, all confusion aside … ?

Does The Living Daylights look good … ?



Is it worth the proverbial wonga?

Is there life in the old good, yet?

Yes, there is, actually.

For starters?   Dalton’s first outing as Bond is a beautifully paced little action thriller: and one with a very different tone as well.

By this stage in the franchise’s history, we’d had seven Bond films with the avuncular Roger Moore in the lead role.

And, as good as Moore was, as different as he was to Sean Connery?

It was time for a change of direction.

And what we got on screen?   Was a darker Bond.

From a personal viewpoint?

I actually felt that Eon Productions, the company behind the Bond series, made a great choice in casting him.



Frankly, Timothy Dalton was and is the most savage looking Bond.   

Let’s not forget, James Bond is a beautifully trained, knowledgable, elegant, witty … 

Killer.

Looking at Dalton?

We can well believe this.

Granted, there’s maybe a flaw or two.



Bar the keyring?   I don’t think there’s much for Q (Desmond Llewellyn) to do.

And, in an early scened?   In an early scene with Moneypenny (Caroline Bliss), M’s ever hopeful secretary ends up with a slapped rear from Bond himself.

Which would cause a scandal, these days, and just show how times have change.

As another?   Art Malik’s in the film: as a Mujahideen resistance fighter, battling the Soviet occupation of his country, and helping Bond and company fight The good fight.

Notice I say resistance fighter.

These days, the Mujahideen are any old Jihadist you care to point at.

The bad guys, in other words

~≈§≈~

Given that, though?   Given The Living Daylights is showing it’s age?

Outside of that, I think The Living Daylights is a great little film.

And, despite the fact it wasn’t the one I wanted to watch, The Living Daylights kept me entertained.

That’s worth the mix up.

The Living Daylights

★★★☆

*        OK, the resemblance is superficial … But Jereon Krabbé really reminds me of Falco, the Austrian 80s singer.