|
|
|
Licence to Kill
Artist: Michael Kamen
Genre: Film Soundtrack
Year: 1989
Record Label: MCA Records
MCAXD-6307 (1989). Original soundtrack recording from the 1989 James Bond film
LICENCE TO KILL. Music composed and conducted by Michael Kamen. Stereo. CD running time: 45:32
Click on the album cover to order from Amazon.com
|
James Bond is catapulted into his most passionate adventure—not for country, not for justice, but for personal revenge. As Agent 007 turns renegade, Timothy Dalton brings urgency, charm, and deadly determination to his portrayal of the screen's greatest action hero. When drug lord Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) exacts his brutal vengeance on Bond's friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison), 007 resigns from the British Secret Service and begins a fierce vendetta against the master criminal. Bond won't be satisfied until Sanchez is defeated, and to accomplish this aim he allies himself with a beautiful pilot (Carey Lowell) and Sanchez's sexy girlfriend
(Talisa Soto). But Bond, relegated to outlaw status, must battle agents on both sides of the law as he discovers the horrifying extent of his prey's resources. In order to bring Sanchez down, Bond must survive a ferocious boat chase, a mid-air brawl over the controls of an out-of-control airplane, and an action-packed confrontation in the Mexico desert. It's a pulse-pounding thrill ride with awesome stunt sequences, subtle humor, and explosive confrontations. When Bond's licence to kill is revoked, he's more deadly than ever! (Synopsis from CD-WOW)
Damned Rodan's
Album Review
Rating (out of 5):
Timothy Dalton's edgy portrayal of Bond in The Living Daylights intensified in 1989's Licence to Kill, which is certainly the grimmest entry in the series; to many, this represented too radical a departure from established formula, and the film suffered for it at the box office. I, for one, have never considered the Bond of the novels "irrelevant" to the character in the films, and as far as I'm concerned, Dalton captured the darkest qualities of the literary 007 with rare elan. For that reason, despite a script so uneven that it seemed put together piecemeal, I find Licence to Kill a flawed but very intense and accessible drama. With some exceptions, the stunts are more believable than usual, and Bond's emotional intensity comes across as never before. I have never accepted Bond as a cartoon; he deserves more depth than that, and when the
action is exhilarating and skirts the edge of reality—without crossing that crucial line, as the Brosnan films too often do—the films work on a superior level.
Robert Davi plays the murderous drug lord Franz Sanchez very convincingly, and—going against the majority opinion of Bond fans—I particularly appreciate the fact that he's not a monomaniacal madman aiming to take over (or destroy) the world. He's certainly the most humanized of all the Bond villains, and Bond's personal vendetta allows suspenseful, close interaction with him. Anthony Zerbe (one of my favorite character actors) plays the slimy Milton Krest with rather hideous realism.
Although his role is minor, Benicio Del Toro (Traffic, Joyride, The Way of
the Gun) turns in a superb performance as the cruel thug Dario. And Talisa Soto, as Sanchez's girlfriend Lupe, possesses a dark sensuality that is provocative
yet distastefully close to sleazy. Alas, the only particularly exaggerated characters—loudmouthed accountant Truman Lodge
(Anthony Starke) and Professor Joe Butcher (Wayne Newton), a shady televangelist who raises money for Sanchez's drug
empire—are not very interesting. Newton, at least, delivers his catch-phrase "Bless your heart!" with competent timing, raising a chuckle when a chuckle is needed.
Overall, there's certainly less humor in Licence to Kill than in the previous entry, but the existing bits work better. Dalton's delivery of the one-liners in The Living Daylights was forced and unnatural, but in his second and last performance as Bond, he is able to snap off his few quips with more assuredness.
But the best moment of levity is when Bond's newest female ally, Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) snaps a photo with what appears to be an ordinary camera; however, the device is one of Q's ubiquitous toys, and after firing a deadly laser, the camera ejects an X-ray image of Bond and Q (Desmond
Llewelyn) ducking for cover. "That's odd," she says, deadpan.
Sadly, John Barry had provided his final score for James Bond with The Living Daylights. Accomplished composer Michael Kamen (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Mr. Holland's Opus, et. al.) took the job for Licence to Kill, and unfortunately it's the weakest of all the Bond soundtracks bar none. Except for the title track, performed by Gladys Knight—which nicely echoes Goldfinger at its beginning and end—the score suffers from a severe case of action
filmitis: a tedious nondescriptness that makes classics out of even the unremarkable contributions of Marvin Hamlisch
and Bill Conti. Although the music at times
evokes a certain amount of tension, and Kamen now and again slips in the Bond theme to let us know that
he hasn't forgotten the star, there's nothing
elegant, grand, atmospheric, or otherwise memorable about a single cut on the album. If anything stands out, it's the sheer mediocrity of the two songs following the main title, "Wedding Party" and "Dirty Love," which are perhaps the most un-Bond-ish tracks ever to find their way onto recorded media. The songs are
superfluous in the film anyway; in comparison, "Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown" from On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a sparkling diamond.
Oddly, various snippets of music from different places in the film have been edited into single tracks and vice-versa; for example, the cuts for the exciting pre-credits sequence are spread between "James and Felix on the Way to Church," "His Funny Valentine," "Licence Revoked," and the first half of "Sanchez in the Bahamas/Shark Fishing." As such, there's no continuity to the album, and one track basically blends into another. Only the occasional
flourish of a Spanish guitar, accenting the scenes with Sanchez, stands out as having a true identity, and even this is nothing more than one of the composer's mannerisms; it falls far short of
exhibiting any genuine style.
Licence to Kill, the movie, is an admirable if sometimes ineffective attempt to bring James Bond back into the world of earthbound adventure; it's a pity that moviegoers have been less willing to buy Dalton's more literal cinematic portrayal of the Fleming character than the prefabricated superhero of the more escapist films. To be fair,
the movie's feeble theatrical performance was more a result of its humorlessness
and sometimes clunky direction than Dalton's interpretation of 007. In
contrast, 1995's GoldenEye, with the benefit of a somewhat more exotic script and Pierce Brosnan's own solid interpretation of the character, more readily clicked with
audiences and established a
direction for future Bond films that both drew upon the successes of the old, proven formula and expanded it into new, wilder, and more grandiose spectacles.
Licence to Kill, the film score, is an exercise in tedium punctuated by a scant few moments of distinction. Gladys Knight's energetic performance of the title theme stands out as superlative, and Patti Labelle's "If You Asked Me To" (the end title theme) has a pleasant melody and
stylish vocals. Bond soundtrack completists might "have to have it," but they might not play it very often. I don't.
Revised
12/27/12 16:42
Film Credits
Producers: Albert R. Broccoli & Michael G. Wilson
Associate Producer: Barbara Broccoli
Associate Producer: Tom Pevsner
Director: John Glen
Screenplay: Michael G. Wilson & Richard Maibaum
Cinematography: Alec Mills
Film Editor: John Grover
Production Designer: Peter Lamont
Title Designer: Maurice Binder
Music: Michael Kamen; Monty Norman (James Bond Theme); Narada Michael Walden, Jeffrey Cohen, Walter Afanasieff & Michael Kamen (Title Song); Tim Feehan ("Dirty Love"); Diane Warren (End Title Lyrics)
Title Song Sung by Gladys Knight
End Title Song Sung by Patti LaBelle
Film Running Time: 133 minutes
Cast
James Bond: Timothy Dalton
Pam Bouvier: Carey Lowell
Franz Sanchez:
Robert Davi
Lupe Lamora:
Talisa Soto
Milton Krest:
Anthony Zerbe
Sharkey: Frank McRae
Ed Killifer:
Everett McGill
Professor Joe Butcher: Wayne Newton
Dario:
Benicio Del Toro
Truman Lodge: Anthony Starke
President Hector Lopez:
Pedro Armendáriz Jr.
M: Robert Brown
Q:
Desmond Llewelyn
Moneypenny: Caroline Bliss
Felix Leiter:
David Hedison
Della Churchill: Priscilla Barnes
Heller: Don Stroud
Hawkins: Grand L. Bush
Kwang:
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
Perez:
Alejandro Bracho
Braun: Guy De Saint Cyr
Mullens:
Rafer Johnson
Loti: Diana Lee Hsu
Nick Fallon:
Christopher Neame
CD Tracks
|
1. Main Title: Licence
to Kill (5:13)
2. Wedding Party
(3:53)
3. Dirty Love
(3:45)
4. Pam
(3:50)
5. If You Asked Me To
(3:58) |
6. James and Felix
Going to Church (3:53)
7. His Funny Valentine
(3:26)
8. Sanchez in the
Bahamas (2:06)
9. Ninja
(6:03)
10. Licence Revoked
(9:11) |
Lyrics
Licence to Kill
Written by Narada Michael Walden, Jeffrey Cohen, Walter Afanasieff & Michael Kamen
Sung by Glady Knight
I feel I've got to hold on to your love...
Hey baby, thought you were the one who tried to run away.
Oh, baby, wasn't I the one who made you want to stay?
Please don't bet that you'll ever escape me
Once I get my sights on you.
Got a license to kill (to kill)
And you know I'm going straight for your heart.
(Got a license to kill)
Got a license to kill (to kill)
Anyone who tries to tear us apart.
(Got a license to kill)
License to kill.
Hey baby, think you need a friend to stand here by your side?
Yes you do (your side)
Oh, baby, now you can depend on me to make things right (things right)
Please don't bet that you'll ever escape me
Once I get my sights on you
Got a license to kill (to kill)
And you know I'm going straight for your heart.
(Got a license to kill)
Got a license to kill (to kill)
Anyone who tries to tear us apart.
(Got a license to kill)
Say that somebody tries to make a move on you
In the blink of an eye, I will be there too
And they better know why I'm gonna make them them pay
Till their dying day
Till their dying day
Till their dying day
Got a license to kill (to kill)
And you know I'm going straight for your heart, baby.
(Got a license to kill)
Got a license to kill
Anyone who tries to tear us apart.
(Got a license to kill)
Got a license to kill (to kill)
And you know I'm heading straight for your heart.
(Got a license to kill)
Got a license to kill
Anyone who tries to tear us apart.
(Got a license to kill)
License to kill
Gotta hold onto your loving.
License to kill
Kill.
Dirty Love
Lyrics by Tim Feehan
Performed by Tim Feehan
You're going nowhere you stumble and fall
You're moving too fast Aand you can't fake it all
She's no good for you, she's no good for you.
Here comes the woman that sneaked out behind you.
If it makes you weak and you fall apart,
Then let it go before it breaks your heart.
It's dirty love, dirty love.
Dirty, dirty love.
It's dirty love, dirty love.
Dirty, dirty love.
She's no good for you, she's no good for you.
Daylight gets slammed in with no place to hide.
It's gonna tear you up when it's so hard.
When it's time you know that you've gone too far,
It's dirty love.
I know you want it, but don't be blind.
I'm gonna tell you for the very last time,
It's dirty love.
If You Asked Me To
Lyrics by Diane Warren
Sung by Patti LaBelle
Used to be that I believed in something,
Used to be that I believed in love,
It's been a long time since I've had that feeling,
I could love someone, I could trust someone.
I said I'd never let nobody near my heart again darling,
I said I'd never let nobody in.
If you asked me to,
I just might change my mind,
And let you in my life forever.
If you asked me to,
I just might give my heart,
And stay here in your arms forever,
If you asked me to,
If you asked me to.
Somehow ever since I've been around you,
Can't go back to being on my own,
Can't help feeling darling since I've found you,
That I've found my home,
That I'm finally home.
I said I'd never let nobody get too close to me darling,
I said I needed, needed to be free.
If you asked me to,
I just might change my mind,
And let you in my life forever.
If you asked me to,
I just might give my heart,
And stay here in your arms forever,
If you...
Ask me to and I will give my world to you baby,
I need you now.
Ask me to and I'll do anything for you baby,
For you baby...