MovieChat Forums > Licence to Kill (1989) Discussion > Was Felix high on painkillers...

Was Felix high on painkillers...

posted 13 years ago by scarlet_symon
36 replies | jump to latest

...at the end of the movie?

I watched LTK again yesterday on the telly and I still consider it one of the best Bond flicks. But that last scene with Felix still throws me, every time I see this movie. He's been mauled by a shark, lost a leg and, most significantly, his new wife has been murdered, all of which has occurred presumably no more than a few days ago... and he's chatting away to James like everything's just peachy.

See, I can buy into all the crazy stuff in the movie; the airplane water-skiing, jumping on the back of trucks, ninja police, electric eels, the usual Bondy type things. But that one scene with Felix actually manages to be more unbelievable than anything that happens before it!

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] kungfuflygirl 13 years ago

I just watched this and thought the same thing. What was he taking? Maybe they shot that one in one take and forgot to tell the actor about his horrible circumstances?

[–] crazy_monkey172 12 years ago

all of which has occurred presumably no more than a few days ago...

I seriously doubt the whole film took place within the time period of a couple days...

S-O-C-O-Double "L" My name is not Norman but still I rock well...

[–] dyahrmarkt 13 years ago

Ha, good point, OP! Unless, like Austin Powers, he was relieved to be a bachelor again! :)

Please nest your IMDB page, and respond to the correct person -

[–] MovieMaster95 12 years ago

Unless, like Austin Powers, he was relieved to be a bachelor again! :)

Felix - "My wife is dead, my one true love and I'll never walk again .....wait a tick, that means I'm single again! I'll call Bond and we can celebrate with a fishing trip."

WINGED FREAK...Terrorizes?....Wait till they get a load of me...

[–] ExpFil 9 years ago

I can't believe Della, my bride, my one true love, the woman who taught me the beauty of monogamy, was a fembot all along.

[–] jun19fan40 12 years ago

Yeah I know exactly what you mean. I love this one and it is in my top three, man that scene is something else.

[–] Skye_Reynolds 12 years ago

I think that the treatment of Felix Leiter was the low point of the film, possibly even the series as a whole. This was a character with a twenty five year history and they treated him like an extra. Personally, I think that it should have been someone else. Bond obviously has more than one friend in the CIA. We saw that with Sharkey. But if it had to be Leiter, they should have treated him with some respect.

I might not mind it as much if The Living Daylights had been a series reboot, but these two films were supposed to be sequels. This was supposed to be the same Felix Leiter who had made such a dramatic introduction in Dr. No. And when he put a bullet through a shark in Thunderball, I seriously doubt if anyone expected that he'd unceremoniously get his leg bitten off by one two decades later.

He was useless against Sanchez, he couldn't even get his hands on the man when he was handcuffed, and all he did was scream helplessly once he was captured. They treated him like a complete and utter joke. And yes, the contrived ending was extremely jarring.

[–] bondukkevin 12 years ago

Like OHMSS I think this film wodul haev worked better without the "living happily ever after" scene at the end.

Bond gets it together with Pam, the other Bond Girl with the general? guy and Bond may get his job back (after leaving and going out for Revenge, even if he did stop a drug lord!?), I think if they were to of made a 3rd Bond film maybe they could have chopped that scene off and just finished with Bond and Pam in Mexico.

The force will be with you always...

[–] futuremoviewriter 12 years ago

one could contribute it to lazy writing, but at the same time, he's not as hard core in this one because maybe he mellowed out and at the same time (like Bond, but in a different way), he's trying to mask his pain. plus, he could actually be given a mix of pain suppressors and/or antidepressants and seditives that kept him from being obviously distraught.

Rise.

[–] resistance01 12 years ago

To be fair, a good deal of time passed, while Bond busy chasing down Sanchez, who knows what Felix was going through. By the time the ending happened Felix could have been relieved enough to celebrate his closure.

[–] ibbi 12 years ago

Makes me LOL every time. Don't let a little thing like character development take the shine off of a happy ending.

___
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCl7EB5Ld7Q

[–] BaronSamedi007 12 years ago

Agreed, this very nearly ruins the film for me.... Especially when you consider that Felix also probably got the heavy news during that phone call that Bond quit and was nearly killed to exact vengance for Felix and Sharkey was also killed in the process.... Also the fact that if it werent for his job Felix's wife would probably not have had been killed in the gruesome way she was had to at least given him a little reservation about returuning to work.... I dont buy the whole it may have been weeks later thing... I'd say the evfents of the film probably covered at most 1-2 months and I just can't believe that's all the time Felix needed to be THAT cool with all that had happened... This was a big missed opertunity in the series... That could have been a very big pivotal conversation where we see the characters evaluate the risks they take in their jobs and the things they give up to live the life they do.... But wait, Felix is fine and he'll be back in a week!

[–] resistance01 12 years ago

Well as much as I don't think it's THAT far fetched that Felix would be coping enough at that point to joke around (don't forget he's supposed to be a ruthless secret agent himself), I do agree that the ending sequence as a whole was ruined by the need for a happy ending.

The whole party at Sanchez's compound works, but erasing all the grit that the rest of the film had was a huge mistake, It's a product of its time but it's the biggest flaw of what is otherwise one of my favourite Bond movies.

[–] BaronSamedi007 12 years ago

Felix may have been cold blooded.... But if he was THAT cold he wouldnt have gotten married in the first place... I mean his wife was physically used then killed because of his job... He lost a leg and an arm... One of his groomsman was murdered and his best friend went on a rogue killing spree with a death sentance put over his head by his own government.... Just to avenge Felix.... You mean to tell me you wouldnt be a little upset not even a month after all this happened.... Bond was cold... but think even though he was cold, he quit his job and risked life and limb because Felix life was ruined... I gotta imagine Felix would be more upset than Bond was....

[–] TMC-4 12 years ago

No disrespect to David Hedison, but I wish that John Terry, who played Felix in The Living Daylights came back for Licence to Kill. I posted in the past, how I thought that Hedison (who of course, previously played Felix Leiter in Live & Let Die, where in the original book, Felix's shark attack takes place) was too old to be a suitable counterpart for Timothy Dalton. Also, Hedison's performance could get a bit hammy or inconsistent (not just the scene towards the end of the movie) like the scene in which Felix is being dumped in the shark tank and is telling Sanchez that he'll see him in hell.

[–] tubbs831 12 years ago

Exactly. Does anyone know why John Terry didn't return? Or was he not asked?

[–] PatrickS77 11 years ago

No disrespect to David Hedison, but I wish that John Terry, who played Felix in The Living Daylights came back for Licence to Kill.

Yeah. That. With Roger Moore gone, it makes absolutely no sense to bring in a 60 year old Felix Leiter, who's still a field agent and getting married. Especially since they just introduced a new Felix 2 years earlier. But one night Cubby ran into David Hedison at a restaurant, so obviously he had to cast him again as Felix, despite being way too hold. Seriously, some of their decisions just let's you scratch your head.

[–] TMC-4 (20258) 3 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20190924151150/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-06-02-8902060079-story.html

Hedison thinks he was asked back, rather than John Terry, the last Leiter, because ''there was much more to do in the film than in the past, and they were afraid of using an unknown or someone they were not quite sure of.'' He had a tremendous time doing the film, which ''has some wonderful gimmicks at the beginning. Jumping out of helicopters, shooting guns. I just had a ball for eight weeks.''

[–] alexindc108 12 years ago

The guy who played felix was just a bad actor. Watch his early scenes with Bond when they go after the dealers. His line readings are so bad it's actually kind of funny.

[–] sascha-17 12 years ago

I just re-watched the film last night with the commentary track, and the actor was pretty ashamed of himself re-watching his scenes. He said that he had had "no idea how to play the character" back then.. :)

Felix shouldn't even have been there in the end anyway. Do you really think you can get your leg bitten off below the knee and not bleed out in a couple of minutes? How did he survive this?

And why did his attackers even let him live? Isn't killing the whole point of throwing someone to the sharks? He saw the crooked cop for one thing, so there'd be a strong motivation for that guy to say "please let's make sure Leiter *really* is dead before we drop him off on the couch".

S.

[–] action_on_deck 12 years ago

Any one that has a problem with Felix's treatment (aside from the last scene), needs to take it up with Ian Flemming (Yes I know he's dead, being sarcastic). The whole "He disagreed with something that ate him" scene was right out of the original "Live and Let Die" novel. The LALD movie didn't use that scene (and also moved a third of the movie from Miami to New Orleans), but they used it in Licence to Kill. They mismatch scenes and character names from the novels all through the movies.

As far as Felix not being killed, Sanchez made it pretty clear that he didn't want Felix dead. When Felix told Sanchez "You don't have to kill me", Sachez responded that he wasn't going to kill him, that "Today is the beginning of the rest of your life". Sanchez wanted Felix's wife dead, along with Felix mutilated by the sharks. And he wanted Felix alive to live through it.

[–] action_on_deck 12 years ago

And, yeah, Felix seemed a bit too happy there at the end. I think they wanted to establish that Felix wasn't dead, but they needed the scene to be a bit better than that.