Licence to Kill (1989): Cast, Plot, Ending and Quick Facts

Licence to Kill (1989), directed by John Glen, is a revenge story in which James Bond works without official approval against the drug lord Franz Sanchez. It opens with Bond preparing to serve as best man at the wedding of his CIA friend Felix Leiter, and before the ceremony the two men help the DEA capture Sanchez.

The arrest does not hold. Sanchez bribes his way out of custody, has Leiter's new wife killed and has Leiter badly injured. Bond wants revenge, and when M orders him to drop it and take another assignment, he refuses.

That refusal is the engine of the whole film. Most Bond missions start with a briefing from headquarters, but this one starts with a friend in a hospital bed and a boss who says no. If you want the full run of events, including how Bond gets inside Sanchez's operation, the next section covers it, with spoilers.

In Licence to Kill, Bond goes after the drug lord Franz Sanchez on his own after Sanchez has Felix Leiter's bride killed, and the film ends with Sanchez dead in a burning tanker convoy in the desert. Sanchez bribes a DEA agent named Killifer and escapes, and in revenge his men kill Leiter's bride and maim Leiter. Bond finds Killifer and kills him.

M suspends Bond and takes away his license to kill when he will not step back, so Bond goes after Sanchez on his own. He travels to the Republic of Isthmus and meets Pam Bouvier, a pilot who works as a DEA informant. Bond then gains Sanchez's trust by making Sanchez believe that Milton Krest, a business partner, has betrayed him.

From there Bond works his way into Sanchez's organization, which hides cocaine inside shipments of petrol and sells it through a front institute run by a televangelist. That scheme is the clever part of the plan. The drug runs ride inside ordinary fuel loads, so the cargo that carries the money is the same cargo that burns.

Sanchez's suspicions grow and Bond is exposed. Bond, Pam and Q, who has come to help unofficially, fight back from inside the operation and set the base on fire. In a final chase between petrol tankers in the desert, Bond sets Sanchez alight and kills him. Bond ends up with Pam and Leiter recovering, and M offers Bond his old position back.

Licence to Kill had its UK premiere at Odeon Leicester Square in London, reported as June 13, 1989, and its US release on July 14, 1989 (confirmed). The Australian release of August 15, 1989 is also reported. The US date is confirmed by The Numbers, while the UK and Australian dates are reported on TMDB.

Certifications differ by market: PG-13 in the US, 15 in the UK and M in Australia.

For the figures across the series, see the James Bond box office page.

In the ending of Licence to Kill, Bond kills Franz Sanchez by setting him alight during a tanker chase in the desert, stays with Pam Bouvier, and is offered his old position back by M.

In my opinion, the tanker chase is the clearest statement of what the film is about. The cocaine hides inside petrol shipments, so a convoy of petrol tankers is the organization's lifeline, and when Bond sets Sanchez alight the empire collapses with him. No other fate would have fit, because the fuel that carried the drugs is the same fuel that burns him. Production accounts record that the chase was filmed on the La Rumorosa pass near Tecate, which gives it an open desert road far from the Republic of Isthmus settings built around Mexico City.

The road to that finale is set up by two earlier scenes. Early on, Everett McGill's Killifer takes Sanchez's bribe, and Bond hunts him down and kills him after M has refused to let him pursue the matter. Later, Bond, Pam and Q turn the operation on itself and set the base on fire, with the front institute filmed at the Otomi Ceremonial Center in Temoaya standing in for the Olimpatec setting. By the time the tankers roll, the empire is already burning, and the chase is the personal payoff Bond has been denied since the wedding.

The human ending matters just as much. Bond ends up with Pam and Leiter recovering, so the film closes on the people it has been fighting for, not on a quip. M offers Bond his old position back, which reads as an acknowledgment that Bond was right to go his own way. The quieter point is that Bond did not need his license to do the job, and the film does not pretend there was no cost, since Leiter is still recovering.

The film's place in the series sharpens the point. It is the 16th of the 25 EON films, arriving after The Living Daylights (1987), and it was the first Bond film shot entirely outside the UK, with Pinewood Studios used only for post production. In my opinion, that physical distance from home matches the story: a Bond cut off from M's office and from British soil, finishing the job in Mexican desert. Producer Albert R. Broccoli was also absent during the Mexico City filming, the first time he missed a production in the series, so the film that most strips Bond of official backing was also made without its longtime producer on set.

The franchise carries on with GoldenEye (1995) next in release order. If you want the villain side, the James Bond villains page puts Sanchez in context, and the fact that Sanchez was loosely inspired by Manuel Noriega, with Isthmus based on Panama, explains why his drug empire is drawn as a business with bribed officials rather than a lair.

Licence to Kill was filmed in Mexico and the United States, and it was the first Bond film shot entirely outside the UK. Mexico stands in for the fictional Republic of Isthmus, which is based on Panama.

• Mexico City, Mexico: Estudios Churubusco studio work, doubling for the Republic of Isthmus.
• Acapulco, Mexico: Villa Arabesque.
• La Rumorosa pass near Tecate, Mexico: the tanker chase.
• Temoaya, Mexico: the Otomi Ceremonial Center, used for the Olimpatec institute.
• Isla Mujeres near Cancun, Mexico: underwater scenes.
• Key West and the Florida Keys, USA: Seven Mile Bridge, Hemingway House and Mallory Square.

Licence to Kill was originally titled Licence Revoked, and the name was changed after American test audiences associated it with driving licenses.

• It was the first Bond film shot entirely outside the UK, with Pinewood Studios used only for post production work.
• Principal photography ran from July 18 to November 18, 1988.
• Michael Kamen composed the score after John Barry was unavailable because of throat surgery following a 1988 esophageal rupture.
• The fictional Republic of Isthmus is based on Panama, and Sanchez was loosely inspired by Manuel Noriega.
• Producer Albert R. Broccoli was absent during the Mexico City filming, the first time he missed a production in the series.

What does the title mean in the story? The phrase refers to Bond's license to kill, which M takes away when Bond will not step back. Taking it away is what makes the rest of the film a private mission.