Licence to Kill

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Year:	1989
Country of origin:	UK / USA
Director:	John Glen
Genre:	Bond
Starring:	Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell
Rating:	3/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097742/
Tagline:	His bad side is a dangerous place to be.
Favourite line:	M: "This private vendetta of yours could easily compromise Her Majesty's government. You have an assignment, and I expect you to carry it out objectively and professionally!" Bond: "Then you have my resignation, sir!" M: "We're not a country club, 007!"

Whilst not as bad as commonly claimed, this is still a terrible disappointment after the epic scale and dark majesty of Dalton's debut.
Unfortunate to say, but this is the one where Bond goes John Rambo on us, and the franchise suddenly seems more like a gritty American actioner than a Bond movie.
Gone are the ridiculous global plotlines, instead this one is about revenge - plain and simple.

Bond goes AWOL when his friend and colleage Felix Leiter is tortured and murdered by a druglord, played with convincingly sadistic relish by the pock-faced, vicious looking Robert Davi - basically, when a director wants a scary looking Hispanic actor, this is who they call first.
Bond's trail of vengeance uncovers a wafer-thin plot about drug smuggling on a grand scale, but that aside, this is more a character piece, contrasting Bond against Davi's Sanchez, whose confidence he gains throughout the course of the film.

Too serious, too small-scale and too American in feel, this would be a good movie if it were some standalone actioner starring Van Damme, Schwarzenneger et al, but as a Bond it just misses the mark.
Shame.