Review 152: The Living Daylights

The Living Daylights was a refreshing take on 007, after years of Roger Moores stupid jokes it was nice to see realism and espionage come back to the franchise. It was just what the series needed.

After Bond (Timothy Dalton) helps Russian officer Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé) make a daring defection to the West, the intelligence community is shocked when Koskov is abducted from his remote hiding place. Bond leaps into action, following a trail that leads to the gorgeous Kara (Maryam d'Abo), who plays Bond as easily as she plays her Stradivari cello. As they unravel a complex weapons scheme with global implications, they are forced into hair-raising chases, a riveting jailbreak and an epic battle in the Afghanistan desert with tanks, airplanes and a legion of freedom fighters on horseback.

The plot returns the series to   In terms of writing and influences, the film draws heavily and intelligently from the short story of the same by Ian Fleming. The story itself, forms the basis for the opening of the film. This plotline works on several different levels. Firstly, the film is going in unpredictable directions

Director John Glen's direction (his fourth film in the series) is sharp, the score by John Barry (his eleventh and final contribution to the franchise) is exquisite, the cinematography is great and captures the beauty of the locations, the production design is stylish and gets the look of every location right, the costume design is fantastic (they capture the flair of Vienna, Austria and the rugged retro feel of Afghanistan), the make up is rich and beautifully detailed, the locations are gorgeous, the effects are spectacular, the sound effects are solid,

the gadgets are cool including a beautiful Aston Martin V8 Vantage featuring Tire Spikes, a Jet engine behind rear number plate, Retractable outriggers, Heat-seeking missiles behind fog lights, Lasers in front wheel hubcaps, Bulletproof windows, Fireproof body and a Self-destruct system and a an explosive keyring), there are some fantastic action scenes (there's a car chase through the Bratislava outskirts and a battle at an Russian airbase in Afghanistan) and they are all well choreographed, the scenery is just gorgeous to look at, the props are immaculate, the stunt work is very excellent (The fact that Dalton did a lot of his own stunts, lends the actions a great sense of grit and realism). the title song by A-ha is terrific and the ending was superb.

Overall the acting is solid. Timothy Dalton plays the role of James Bond much darker, more brooding, emotionally sensitive, conflicted, moody, self-critical regarding his job, introspective, cynical, world-weary, and jaded.                                                                                                                                              He doesn't crack jokes and one-liners for his own amusement, or to appear suave and witty, but rather as a way of dealing with stress, bitterness and exasperation. Playing the character as someone who's never comfortable with his job.

He has a strong screen presence, is charasmatic and weilds a great deal of authority in serious scenes but he doesn't seem to realise that whole affair should be a bit fun. He sports a crazed look in his eyes that makes it look like he's unstable or like he's on drugs.                                                                            Dalton's greatest asset is that his face has a certain kind of violence about it. You take one look at his face and you are not sure what this man is capable of.      

And there are few mean spirited moments e.g. a scene were Bond chases an assassin through a fair and scares a boy and his mom.

Sporting a convincing Russian accent, Maryam d'Abo is lovely as Kara Milovy but hardly stands out as one of the series best.

John Rhys-Davies is fabulous as General Pushkin, Andreas Wisniewski is a trecherous henchman, Art Malik is great as Kamran Shah: a leader in the Afghan Mujahideen

Jeroen Krabbé and Joe Don Baker make for a fairly forgettable pair of villains playing Gen. Georgi Koskov and Brad Whitaker respectively.  Whitaker, on the other hand, only appeared in a handful of scenes and generally came across as something of a kooky phony general

John Terry is pretty indifferent as Felix Leiter, he's literally in this film for what amounts to a brushed-off cameo and has as one critic put it plainly "virtually no chemistry with Dalton."
Caroline Bliss is lovely but doesn't match up to Lois Maxwell or Samantha Bond as the new Moneypenny.

The Living Daylights is a bit rough around the edges but overall it's definately a solid debut for Timothy Dalton, 4/5.

The Anonymous Critic.