The Living Daylights

Plot synopsis:
James Bond - agent 007 and sometimes referred to as simply '007' - and two other MI6 agents conduct a training exercise at a military base in Gibraltar with the SAS. There an assassin disguised as an MI6 agent gives a message to one of the agents (004), attaching a small note to a carabiner clip and sends it down the agents rope and then kills him by cutting his rappelling line, causing the agent to fall to his death. Bond witnesses the assassin trying to escape in a vehicle and pursues him, which results in the assassin's death.Bond is sent to Bratislava to help Agent Saunders from Station V conduct the defection of a KGB officer, General Georgi Koskov, covering his intermission escape from a concert hall in Bratislava. During the mission, Bond notices that the KGB sniper assigned to prevent Koskov's escape is a female cellist from the orchestra. Noting the unsteady manner in which she is holding the rifle, Bond concludes that she is not a professional assassin. He shoots at her rifle, blowing out the breech, preventing her from shooting Koskov. Koskov is taken by car to an operating center of the Russian gas pipeline and is shot into Austria in a cleaning plug. Saunders is furious about Bond's decision to spare the cellist, but Bond defiantly says that he will risk M's displeasure.In his post-defection debriefing, Koskov informs MI6 that the KGB's old policy of "Smiert Spionam", meaning "Death to Spies", has been revived by General Leonid Pushkin, the new head of the KGB. A blond assassin, Necros, infiltrates Koskov's safehouse disguised as a milkman, and abducts Koskov after a pitched battle. Bond is directed to track down Pushkin in Tangier and kill him in order to forestall further killings of agents and escalation of tensions between the Soviet Union and the West. Although Bond's prior knowledge of Pushkin initially leads him to doubt Koskov's claims, he agrees to carry out the mission when he learns that the assassin who killed 004 (as depicted in the pre-title sequence) left a note bearing the same message, "Smiert Spionam."Bond's instincts about the cellist being an amateur are vindicated when Q runs her description through a database detailing all of the KGB's known female operatives, finding no match. Bond returns to Bratislava to track down the cellist, Kara Milovy. He discovers that Milovy is actually Koskov's girlfriend and begins to suspect that Koskov's entire defection was staged. Bond convinces Milovy that he is a friend of Koskov's and persuades her to accompany him to Vienna, supposedly to be reunited with him. Meanwhile, Pushkin meets with arms dealer Brad Whitaker in Tangier, informing him that the KGB is cancelling an arms deal previously arranged between Koskov and Whitaker. When Whitaker is meeting with Koskov and Necros, it is revealed that Koskov had faked his defection in order to manipulate the British to kill Pushkin in order to silence him since Necro's past with the KGB makes him unsuitable to perform this task himself as it would cause too much risk to their plans. After Koskov decides to have another British operative killed to further manipulate Bond, Whitaker agrees to it but wants Necros to kill Pushkin if Bond isn't able to in time before the end of the trade convention which Pushkin is in Tangier to attend.During his brief tryst with Milovy in Vienna, Bond meets Saunders, who discovers a history of financial dealings between Koskov and Whitaker. As he leaves their meeting, Saunders is killed by Necros, who again leaves the message "Smiert Spionam."Bond and Milovy promptly leave for Tangier, where Bond confronts Pushkin. Pushkin disavows any knowledge of "Smiert Spionam", and reveals that Koskov is evading arrest for embezzlement of government funds. During the trade convention, Bond fakes Pushkin's assassination (unknowingly saving Pushkin's life, as Necros infiltrated the trade conference to kill him) , inducing Whitaker and Koskov to progress with their scheme. While escaping with some girls, Bond soon finds that they are undercover CIA agents who take him to Felix Leiter and discovers that Felix has been investigating Whitaker illegal arms deals meaning they are both working on the same case. Meanwhile, Milovy contacts Koskov, who tells her that Bond is actually a KGB agent and convinces her to drug him so he can be captured.Koskov, Necros, Milovy, and the captive Bond fly to a Soviet air base in Afghanistan, where Koskov betrays Milovy and imprisons her along with Bond. The pair escape and in doing so free a condemned prisoner, Kamran Shah, leader of the local Mujahideen tribe. Bond and Milovy discover that Koskov is using Soviet funds to buy a massive shipment of opium from the Mujahideen, intending to keep the profits with enough left over to supply the Soviets with their arms.With the Mujahideen's help, Bond plants a bomb aboard the cargo plane carrying the opium, but is spotted and has no choice but to barricade himself in the plane. Milovy drives a jeep into the back of the plane as they take off, and Necros also leaps aboard at the last second. After a struggle, Bond throws Necros to his death and deactivates the bomb.While they fly off, Bond sees Shah and his troops being pursued by the Soviet army. Bond flies over a large bridge that the Mujahideen have crossed and drops the bomb he'd deactivated, destroying the bridge and cutting off the pursuit of the Soviets.Low on fuel and flying over Pakistan, Bond loses power to a few of the plane's engines and decides that they have to exit before crashing. He uses the jeep that Kara had driven into the back of the plane to escape. The plane crashes and explodes as he and Kara drive off toward Karachi.Bond returns to Tangier and sneaks into Whitaker's home with Felix's help, where he finds Whitaker re-enacting the Battle of Gettysburg and playing out Pickett's Charge as he would have fought it. Whitaker is able to distract Bond long enough to arm himself with a few of his high-tech weapons. Bond eventually outwits Whitaker by planting an explosive charge on a heavy bust of a British general that crushes Whitaker. Pushkin enters, killing a guard that would have killed Bond and arrests Georgi Koskov, who tries to convince him that Whitaker had been holding him hostage.Kara plays a concert in London where she's granted a solo performance. She's met by General Gogol who has accepted a diplomatic assignment in the West. He informs Kara that she'll be given a special passport that will allow her to leave and visit the Eastern Bloc whenever she likes. Bond is not at the event, however, having been re-assigned to a new mission.Kara returns to her hotel room and finds Bond waiting for her. The two share a romantic kiss.

Tags: cult, suspenseful, murder

Review:
I grew up watching this movie as child it has a great action and one of the best Timothy Dalton's performance as James Bond he is excellent and charming I love his character.
The side love story is great to watch.I'm a hard-core James Bond fan I love old movies I love GoldenEye to death, I love Roger Moore and Sean Connery, Peirce Brosnan and of course Timothy Dalton.I love The Living Daylights I love this movie to death I also love Maryam D'abo in this she is enthralling I just love and enjoy watching this film not as much as I love GoldenEye but I love this movie to death.
The villains, while not 'top drawer' Bond, were effective; Jeroen Krabbé as a defecting Russian general, dancer-turned-actor Andreas Wisniewski as nearly superhuman assassin Necros, and Joe Don Baker, as a 'good ol' boy' megalomaniac U.S. general.With action around the world, and a complicated plot involving a weapons heist and sale, the story attempted to be more 'topical' by involving the Afghan/Soviet conflict (which, unfortunately, 'dated' it, as well).
The plot involving the double-double cross of a KGB agent defecting to Britain called Georgi played brilliantly by Jeroen Krabbe, and Bond's attempts to find him when he is 'kidnapped' by playing on the trust of his girlfriend, Kara, a beautiful cello player performed magnificently by Maryam D'abo, is enthralling, and the way it leads from the London countryside, to the ferris wheels of Vienna and eventually to Afghanistan is superbly done.
The film is mixture of the thriller elements of the Ian Fleming novels and the epic adventure scope of the movies.As James Bond Timothy Dalton is excellent, a fantastic choice to play the part.
One thing that can be said about Timothy Dalton's two appearances in the role of Bond is that both efforts where excellent.This one is more in the traditional Bond mould than the much darker Licence To Kill that followed it but was still quite a fresh, well scripted and acted story.It is a bit of a shame that the original plan to have General Gogol throughout rather than General Pushkin had to be dropped due to Walter Gottel being unavailable but even still, John Rhys Davies does well in his role.Bond girl Myriam D'Abo is a great improvement on her immediate predecessor even if she does not have a huge amount to do and the quality of the photography, particularly the Afghanistan sequences, are excellent.
AVTAK produced four conquests for the rampant fossilised babe magnet (!) Moore, here just the one and discreet at that.Thankfully silly gimmicks such as another of M's silly offices (Back of a Hercules plane this time following previous instalments in a submarine, Egyptian ruin, sunken ocean liner and a monastery!)  were dispensed with quickly and never really seen in the Bond series again after this.A cracking soundtrack from John Barry (quite possibly his best)finishes off this excellent instalment, which saw the farewell performances of two more stalwarts of the Bond series, Walter Gottel in an all too brief cameo as General Gogol and soundtrack master extraordinaire John Barry (he actually appears here as the orchestra conductor at the Opera House at the very end).All in all a really good one.
Quite simply put The Living Daylights is one of the best James Bond films they have ever made & if Wilson & co are smart they'll do more like this one.Having decided to give up the role of 007 in 1985 Roger Moore stepped down,Moore had saved the series in the early 70's but had stayed in the role a movie to long(they should have left it with the excellent Octopussy),the hunt was now on for a new actor who could take the role into the 90's....Thankfully Dalton was the man they found.
As soon as he got the part Dalton went straight back to the source material..ie Ian Fleming's novels & it shows on the screen...the bond in the Living Daylights is the Bond character jumping right out of the books.The film really shows how keen everyone involved in it wanted to say that this was a fresh start but at the same time still show that this is a Bond picture & they pull it off very well..John Glen's direction is excellent,he really found his feet by now & all the aspects of the film are done well...A special mention must also go to John Barry who's score for the film is one of his best...oh if only they couyd bring him back rather than have his clone do the new ones....Timothy Dalton is very much undervalued in his contribution to the Bond movies but i do feel that in about 10 years & his films will be seen in a different light on how they are looked on today.
The hopes of fans were realized with this film that began a new era in the world of 007.Timothy Dalton is perhaps the closest actor in terms of vision to Ian Fleming's idea of Bond.
With Timothy Dalton's grand performance as Bond, Maryam d'Abo as Kara, a good supporting cast, great action scenes, and a great score, The Living Daylights delivers a classic Bond adventure that ranks just outside the top five classic films..
Maryam d'Abo is a good Bond girl, making Kara Milovy brave but also sweetly innocent, the pairing of Dalton and d'Abo works very well.Where the picture mainly falls down is with the villains, who are just too lightweight to amp up the peril within the plot.
One misstep in the film 's plotting sees Bond and Milovy escape from danger by using a Cello case as a sledge, it looks daft and feels like it belongs in one of Roger Moore's cartoonish Bond movies.
Timothy Dalton debuts for the role of James Bond 007, taking over for Roger Moore after his "A View to a Kill", and his performance is excellent.
A kick ass fight between Green-4 and Necros (superbly played by Andreas Wisniewski, who has a most memorable, and rather funny, death scene) ; probably the sweetest Bond girl ever, Kara Milovy (played by Maryam d'Abo) My favourite aspect of this is that Timothy Dalton's Bond was a chameleon, who could pull off a number of different guises.
Following the clues all lead to a renegade weapons smuggler (Joe Don Baker as maniacal villain) who join forces with the phony defector.Timothy Dalton as new James Bond is cool , lacked in irony, suavity and sympathy characterized by Roger Moore however earns in dimension of humanity , coldness ,cunning , adding intelligence and toughness like Sean Connery and nearly to character created by Ian Fleming .
In spite of the spectacular opening sequences the Bond films were starting to look a little bit old and tired just like its star Roger Moore , then the producers Michael Wilson, Albert R.
After the ultra-suave Roger Moore Bond, Dalton's Bond seems almost mean-spirited in comparison, there may be one-liners, but this guy at least seems fit to be a secret agent.The action scenes in "The Living Daylights" are all great.
His first movie is a great spy thriller that, like "For Your Eyes Only," gives us a more down-to-earth approach to the world's favorite spy.Timothy Dalton is a decidedly different Bond from his immediate predecessor, Roger Moore.
This is a welcome and refreshing new take on the character, and in his first performance, Dalton immediately makes the role his own.Kara Milovy, played by Maryam d'Abo, is the most underrated Bond girl, in my opinion.
The Living Daylights has all the elements that make a classic Bond, a script that uses Flemings original short story within the overall plot.The cast, locations and action sequences are all there but its Daltons portrayal that makes this Bond film one for todays fans.
At the time, Daltons performance was not fully accepted by the movie going public, a far more ruthless, cold blooded interpretation of Bond, which was very different to Moores previous character.
The Living Daylights manages to overcome the problem of it's length (all bond movies are a little too long) and remains interesting all the way through, assisted by a plot that never requires long dull conversations like many others in the series.Timothy Dalton is supremely underrated as Bond, and people who blindly label him as "humourless" are obviously confusing humour with campness; this isn't one of the forgettable pieces of fluff from the Moore years.Maryam d'Bo is a memorable Bond girl, she's certainly not the most attractive but she has an endearing innocence and her scenes with Dalton are always nice.The opening song and score throughout the movie is certainly the best of the series as well.Unless you're solely dedicated to the Roger Moore style of Bond movie, The Living Daylights is a great turn for the franchise..
Though some might consider this a detriment to the role of 007, it makes his 2 films at least somewhat more plausible than all of the others and his touch of humanity is quite refreshing, in my view.The villains are not the strongest in this film, but it has the best love story since "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".Maryam d'Abo is a terrific, heart-melting leading lady; I rank her right up there with Izabella Scorupco from "Goldeneye" as the 2 best bond women ever.And the recurring role of Walter Gotell as General Gogol is always welcome.All in all a great show..
However, sometimes the film gets a little too caught up in itself, and while it's good that Dalton brings more seriousness to the role and the film doesn't include a great deal of humour in his performance, films like this also need to be fun - and The Living Daylights isn't always.
Of course Bond with Timothy Dalton is still far better than Bond with a 59 year old Roger Moore.Overall, The Living Daylights is far from the best film in the series, but neither is it one of the worst.
The Living Daylights marked the end of an era for the Bond franchise in some ways, being the last film in the series to have a Cold War theme, thanks to the imminent downfall of the Berlin Wall, and also the last to boast a score by John Barry.
With the aged Roger Moore finally stepping aside, TLD saw respected Welsh actor Timothy Dalton become the fourth official James Bond, a role he had first been linked with at the time of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Not since the early Connery films had OO7 been presented in such a realistic light, and Dalton's performance in both his Bond films is probably the closest any actor has got to portraying Fleming's original character.Taken as a whole, TLD matches Dalton's sombre performance by being one of the more down-to-earth Bond extravaganzas, a stylish Cold War spy thriller focusing on the defection to the West of Koskov, a leading KGB man who turns out to be in cahoots with a renegade American general-turned-arms dealer called Whitaker.
As i grown up i saw The living daylights months back, i realized that Timothy played the real bond of Ian Flemings.The movie starts with the new era of bond...
So we were to say goodbye to one of the worlds most recognised faces this was the guy who had made millions out of the franchise and had delivered the role so well he had kept it going for the bulk of the 70's and 80's but even the great Roger Moore was no longer capable of playing the biggest role in movie history.The next guy who was to play the secret agent would naturally bring it out of the 'techno' style that we all had grown accustomed to.Timothy Dalton was to step into Roger's worn shoes and give the role an edge that no other actor to play Bond had wanted to cross.
Dalton, characterisation and storyDalton is the serious brooding dark humoured real agent This film stands up on its own as a wonderful espionage movie, it's also the best Bond movie ever Its not pantomime, it's not double entendre, it's not corny carry on toilet humour like the tedious dreadful non actor Moore.
How a man with no acting talent no character no backbone did 7 Bond's is beyond meConnery was great Brosnan was pretty darn good Dalton is the best actor to have played the role.
However, those scenes are about the best thing you can find in this mostly dull Bond film.The Living Daylights was the first film that featured Timothy Dalton as Bond.
In "The Living Daylights", however, Dalton brings the right approach to the role, making Bond a professional secret agent rather than a comedian with a gun or an obsessive, brooding avenger.Another reason for the film's relative success is that there are several chase sequences, all very well done.
Sure, there are 3 decent set pieces and it has some interesting plot points and a good henchman, but ultimately this is one of the hardest Bond films to sit through since it's so boring.The main Bond girl feels like a human being but is a pretty uninteresting character while Lois Maxwell is missed as Moneypenny.
Great gags and action sequences woven through a detailed, complex (but in no way convoluted) story, which, unlike many Bond flicks, is quite unpredictable.The characters are more realistically portrayed than many Moore-era ones (except maybe Necros, who's very much a Bond-movie henchman, though a good one).
After Roger Moore's less than spectacular exit from the James Bond series,those in charge of these productions needed a strong debut from someone new.They didn't get it.Perhaps Timothy Dalton's lack of success as Bond has a lot to do with the fact that he only ended up with the role after Pierce Brosnan had to pull out and honor his Remington Steele contract with NBC.Connery and Moore added a great deal of charm to James Bond,and with Timothy Dalton,the charm level seemed to drop a few notches.Perhaps this film is to blame.The story is very dry and I had trouble staying interested in it.The only remotely exciting thing about the film was the performance of Joe Don Baker as a renegade arms dealer.Otherwise,this installment of the series is among the most forgettable..
Is it Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker) or General Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé)?The movie also lacks some good memorable scene's, although the end battle is pretty big and spectacular for Bond standards.
The living daylights 1987I found this to a improvement in previous entries in this series.I do think it was time for new bond however it still takes me a while to get into a another person Playing bond , it might take a least two or maybe 3 movies to get used to it!I found this much better and started of really with some decent action scenes thought out.I loved that milk scene was great I found the plot more intruding and I was really into.Really good bond movie I am going give this movie a 7 out of 10.
So Roger Moore is out and now we got a new Bond and a better one if I must say.Timothy Dalton in my opinion has to be the most charming, bad-ass and the by far the best Bond since Connery.
Good Fun. James Bond (Timothy Dalton) is living on the edge to stop an evil arms dealer from starting another world war.
I like to think so, and nothing about "The Living Daylights" suggests otherwise, however much it flails at the notion of rejiggering the classic franchise.The people behind the film, director John Glen and the folks at EON Productions, obviously figured that with a few nods in the direction of Roger Moore's eyebrow-raising charm, a note of authenticity could be subtly inserted into the Bond movies without anyone noticing.
Krabbé is very good as the slimy defective, Davies good as always and D'Abo not only looks great but doesn't play a total "blondie" as well and that's a good thing.I wish Dalton had come to the series earlier as Moore overstayed his welcome but his two Bond films, especially The Living Daylights, remain series highlights..
Director John Glen stays true to even more realistic elegant visual image system as "For Your Eyes Only" (1981), which brings the "007" back to beauty and excellency embedded in highly risky stunt work from parachute base jumping, a car chase with all-famous Aston Martin model V8 vantage (manufactured between 1977-1989) sliding over frozen lakes, further features as an overly-done metal-splicing laser, missile rockets and an afterburner engine before enterting a highly weaponized showdown including an interior gunship fight to the death, keeping "The Living Daylights" as one of the most suspenseful picture in the "007" movie series.Most beautiful as stylish customes by reprising designer Emma Porteous as down-to-earth production design by Peter Lamont in his fourth assignment for a James Bond movie, establishing splendid charms with leading actor Timothy Dalton's bold to cool interpretation of "007" being the initial MI6 high-class spying assassin with the "Licence To Kill", sharing reminiscence to Sean Connery in "From Russia With Love" (1963).
In this sense the film is the closest to From Russia with Love in feeling like pure espionage which is fantastic.James Bond: Personally I'm a big Dalton fan and think he makes an excellent debut.
"The Living Daylights" was the first of two James Bond films featuring Timothy Dalton as 007.
Timothy Dalton is not my favorite 007, but he does a good job in The Living Daylights, particularly in the opening scene, in which director John Glen involved two other 00 agents, hoping to create excitement and interest as to which of the three would turn out to be Bond.
The 17th James Bond starts with a new face as the secret agent, Timothy Dalton, and while he is better than Roger Moore, he just doesn't have the swagger that Sean Connery or the newest Pierce Brosnan.