Genre – Action
Movie Total Runtime – 2 Hour 10 Minutes
Spoilers – Yes

I am 99-200% sure I’ve watched the Dalton Bond movies. But my criteria for adding Bond movies to the list was “Can I Remember anything about this one?” I could not place a plot, a villain, or even a scene. So it went on the list, just to be sure.

We start with a panning shot of shore defenses and a tall cliff face. Three 00-Agents are being briefed about the exercise to break through SAS defenses and get into the radar facility. They parachute down to a rather sedate musical number. One gets tagged by a Guard’s paintballs on getting out of a tree. Bad guy lethally shoots a different guard before cutting the rope one of the 00-agents was hanging from. Bond sees this and moves to investigate, finding the rope and corpse. Bad guy kills another guard to hijack a land rover for his escape. Bond jumps on the roof and we get the music ramped up as the action sequence starts. Land Rover was filled with boxes marked “Explosive” which catch fire when hit by bullets. We get the obligatory 80’s car sequence of driving through stuff as Bond and Bad Guy fight for control of the vehicle before it goes over the cliff and Bond bails using his reserve chute.

Roll opening credits.

The musical number behind the opening credits is somniferous. Really fails to put me in the right frame of mind for a Bond movie. Just as I write this, the credits tell me it’s performed by ‘a-ha’. Now, I have heard of the band, but I often forget about them.

We return from the credits in Czechoslovakia. Bond meets Sensible Contact at an orchestra spying on a guy guarded by the KGB in another box. The operation is to facilitate the defection of Soviet Mastermind. Bond’s task is to provide protection. Leaving for a spot across the street, Bond picks up a rifle with multiple extra scopes to take up a counter-sniper position as the opening move of the first phase of the plan, to which he is not made privvy, as the exfiltration is need to know, and he does not. I get the impression we’re not supposed to like Sensible Contact, but he’s being sensible and following policy. KGB Mastermind escapes the concert hall via bathroom window. We find that the KGB Sniper is the female Cellist Bond had been ogling earlier. Sensible Contact is annoyed when Bond shoots Sniper Cellist’s rifle instead of her. I like this guy, he’s sensible.

Bond takes over exfiltration from Sensible Contact, and takes KGB Mastermind to a natural gas pipleline and stuffs him into a maintenance capsule to send him down the pipeline to the west. Bond picks up Sensible Contact at the border crossing where everyone hears the maintenance capsule shoot past in the pipe. Q picks up KGB Mastermind and loads him on to a Harrier jet for the next leg of the voyage.

Back in the UK, while Bond is called to a country house, we see a bad guy ambush and replace a Milkman. While KGB Mastermind is being debriefed, Milkman enters the grounds. KGB Mastermind advocates for the elimination of his superior providing a claim of a coming assassination offensive against all western spies. Milkman kills the cook, but is caught stuffing him in a chest freezer and gets into a fight with a security patrol. It’s a pretty brutal fight for two (as yet) unnamed characters. Milkman impersonates the patrol guard on the radio and claims a gas leak in the house. Chucking milk bottle grenades, Milkman recaptures KGB Mastermind and takes the debriefing materials while rushing KGB Mastermind to a fake medivac helicopter.

British Intelligence issues a kill order on KGB Superior and Q starts his gadget demo. On his way to where the KGB Superior is expected to be, Bond detours to Czechoslovakia to see Sniper Cellist. Before he can make contact, she is arrested by people reporting to KGB Superior. Bond walks off with her cello case, which contains the damaged rifle – loaded with blanks. The arrest didn’t stick as Sniper Cellist returns to her apartment to find it tossed and Bond not far behind her. KGB Minders are tailing Sniper Cellist. She mistakes Bond for a friend of KGB Mastermind, and he entices her with talk of meeting KGB Mastermind again. They elude the KGB Minders but Sniper Cellist insists on getting her cello back from the concert hall, costing them valuable time.

We’re getting a lot of Philips electronics product placements. I wonder how much they paid for it. Anway, the local police spot Bond, but he uses a magic laser to separate the chassis of their car from the frame and uses missiles to blast through the roadblock. The Army joins the police and pursues to a frozen lake. It feels less like an organic action sequence than a contractual obligation to have X number of gadgets in the movie. After the Aston Martin is disabled and self destructs, Bond and Sniper Cellist ride the cello case down the mountain, pursued by a snowcat and ski troopers. They slide under the barrier at the Austrian border crossing, ending the scene and switching us to Tangiers.

In all, the chase felt contrived.

KGB Superior meets Ugly American in a manor house with a wax museum and miniature wargaming diarama museum. Ugly American is trying to sell high tech weapons to KGB Superior, using the Afghanistan stalemate as part of his sales pitch. KGB Superior is looking for a refund on the Soviet deposit with Ugly American. It appears that Ugly American and KGB Mastermind have a scheme going on that KGB Superior doesn’t approve of. Makes sense why KGB Mastermind wants the British to assassinate KGB Superior for him.

I am now convinced I never watched this movie before.

Bond checks in to a hotel in Vienna where he’s recognized by the front desk. He abuses his expense account to buy stuff for Sniper Cellist. KGB Mastermind, Ugly American, and Milkman have a meeting where the previous deductions are exposited, and Milkman sent to take out another British agent to encourage them to move against KGB Superior. Bond takes Sniper Cellist to the opera where Sensible Contact meets them and Bond informs him of the blanks and asks about the large sums KGB Mastermind has been spending on Sniper Cellist himself. Sensible Contact goes off to find more information. Milkman kills Sensible Contact well after I expected him to, but giving him enough time to hand over the information on Ugly American having been the straw buyer for KGB Mastermind in acquiring Sniper Cellist’s Cello.

Teleporting to North Africa, Bond begins tailing KGB Superior rather sloppily. I could have spotted that tail, and I’m not a professional spy. At a swanky hotel, KGB Superior is cornered by Bond and questioned. KGB Superior denies having association with the dead British Agents and that KGB Mastermind was slated to be arrested for misuse of state funds. He then alerts KGB Minder via a hidden transmitter in his watch. Bond ambushes the KGB Minder and states that “as long as [KGB Superior] is alive” they will not know what KGB Mastermind is up to. As KGB Superior is alive in the very next scene, I can only assume they hatch an off-screen plan to fake his death and flush out KGB Mastermind. Bond very publically shoots KGB Superior and gets into a foot chase with local police on the rooftops. Meanwhile, KGB Superior is wheeled into a private room where he stands up.

Meanwhile, Bond is suckered into a car by some women who take him prisoner and deliver him to White Felix. They exchange vague info about Ugly American. While Bond talks to White Felix, somebody calls KGB Mastermind at Ugly American’s house. Turns out it was Sniper Cellist who made the call. Thinking Bond is actually KGB, she drugs him on his return, and Milkman collects the collapsing agent. He is loaded on to a repainted C-130 that can somehow carry the ambulance and still has an extensive passenger compartment. While still prisoners, Bond and Sniper Cellist find that they are smuggling diamonds as well. Repainted C-130 lands in Afghanistan. KGB Mastermind finally re-betrays Sniper Cellist, and has her imprisoned with Bond in the same cell block as Not-Taliban, who is sentenced to death by the Soviets.

Since this was still the time when we were shovelling guns and money to the Afghanis, the media regarded them as put-upon good guys rather than a sordid collection of different factions whose interests only marginally aligned with those of anybody outside their own in-groups. Fat Jailer racks up as many “you are not supposed to like this guy” points as he can in as few screen seconds as they can. Bond uses a gadget to start the fight with Fat Jailer which ends with him locked in one of his own cells. He releases Not-Taliban on his way out, but they separate. I expect Checkov’s Mujahadeen.

Bond and Sniper Cellist sneak through the Soviet base and use a portable stairway to clear the electric fence. They are picked up by Not-Taliban’s people and we get the desolation tour of a skirmish between the Afghans and the Soviets. I really expected that to take longer to come in to play. It is not explained what the Afghans were doing just outside the wire at the Soviet base. They did not have enough people to try to get in, and the spot they chose had poor lines of sight if it were recon. The plot demanded it, I suppose.

At the Afghan fort, we find Not Taliban to be uncooperative with regard to Bond’s plan. A plan which was not explained in any detail. Sniper Cellist emotes for a bit before the formula mandated relationship continues. The Afghans ride through terrain that looks suspiciously like the American Southwest with two fake palm trees added. Bond realizes that the Mujahadeen are shipping opium in red cross bags, selling them to Ugly American, who pays with the diamonds previously smuggled, bought with the Soviet depsoit on the arms shipment. Bond slips on to the truck with the Opium carrying a bomb, hiding among the bags. Milkman and a nameless guard get on as well.

Sniper Cellist steals Not Taliban’s Kalashnikov and rides off after the convoy, prompting the Afghans to pursue. The convoy enters the Soviet base as Bond is prepping the bomb, still somehow unnoticed by the Soviet Guard and Milkman. He hides among the local laborers moving the shipment to the repainted C-130. Despite the land around the base being flat and devoid of vegetation, a few hundred mounted Afghans sneak up on the base. Bond is finally spotted and cornered on the plane with the armed bomb by the time the Afghans attack the gate. Not Taliban finds a magic Killdozer to cause some trouble as Bond starts the plane and begins to taxi.

I would have expected a Soviet air base to be better protected than this in terms of both fighting positions and perimeter barriers. Your average back garden has about as much defensive architecture as this place. They do have some Soviet not-Jeeps, of which Sniper Cellist steals an unarmed one while KGB Mastermind and Milkman pursue in one armed with a machine gun. Bond lowers the tail ramp so Sniper Cellist can drive on board. Milkman makes it on by jumping, but KGB Mastermind is left behind on the ground as the repainted C-130 lifts off. Bond goes to try to defuse his own bomb and gets jumped by Milkman. Their fight starts the cargo shifting. Sniper Cellist gets the brilliant [/sarc] idea to open the ramp and try to climb, causing Bond and Milkman to end up dangling out the back on the cargo netting. Her attempts to shake this loose only keep making things worse. Bond and Milkman continue their fight as each tries to get back into the plane. This ends with Milkman trying to use Bond’s boot as a parachute. It proves to have insufficient surface area for the purpose.

Luckily for Bond, his bomb audibly beeps, so he is able to find it and shut it off instead of boing boom. Unluckily for Bond, Sniper Cellist doesn’t look where she is flying, and almost flies them into a cliff. The Soviets pursue the fleeing Afghans past the fake palm trees and Bond repurposes his bomb to take out the bridge between the Afghans and Soviets. The Afghans cheer at the loss of their critical infrastructure because it took out two armored cars that cost less than one of their horses.

At some point the auxfuel tanks were riddled with bullets and apparently the main tanks were never filled in the first place, as they lack the avgas to reach Pakistan. Using the rapid cargo deployment system, they deplane before crashing and drive on a suspiciously well-paved road. We cut immediately to Bond sneaking into Ugly American’s villa where he’s playing with his minis. Despite having Ugly American at gunpoint, Ugly American still gets the drop on him and they have a shootout. Bond takes out Ugly American but is saved from normal guards by KGB Superior. KGB Mastermind tries to lie his way out, but KGB Superior doesn’t fall for it.

The movie wraps up with Sniper Cellist playing in Vienna.

I’m convinced I did not previously watch this movie. It’s forgettable but not so forgettable that I’d have forgotten it that completely. It’s worst sin is being just okay. I referenced the formula and contractually obligated inclusions because it really felt like a paint by numbers Bond movie. Which is not a good way to introduce us to the new actor in the role.

My favorite Dalton film is still Hot Fuzz.