Plans for a screening of Licence To Kill

Licence To Kill (1989) is the Bond film which first got me interested in the series. I remember channel hopping on my TV one evening when I was around 14 and coming across ITV's Bond film marathon, of which they were up to number 16: Licence To Kill. I saw a man's head explode, another man fed to a shark, I spotted a very young-looking Benicio Del Toro and in Timothy Dalton was a Bond, who looked so emotionally chewed up (due to a revenge plot) that I wasn't sure if I could trust him to make the right decisions or if he was going to, or even wanted to, get out of the fight sequences alive. I was hooked. Licence To Kill became even more interesting to me as I watched the 20-odd other films of the series: as I took note of the Bond conventions I realised how divergent this 16th adventure was. However, it is Licence To Kill's straying towards more gritty territory, which effectively ensured its negative reception with traditionalist Bond fans and it didn't do wonders at the box office, spelling the end of Dalton's career as Bond. With the recent appraisal of Daniel Craig's gritty revival of the character, I have found myself looking back to Licence To Kill and making comparisons. It seems now that audiences are finally ready to see a man's head exploding and a Bond who gets it wrong and bleeds during fight sequences. I am currently in talks to host a screening of Licence To Kill at the University of Bristol so that I can bring this rather neglected gem to a new audience of budding young film students. I also plan to give a brief talk about its status as, arguably, the first divergent Bond film: the first to convey a much grittier storyline and hero.

Licence To Kill trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qAFVTpWz90