Alphabetical Movie – Live and Let Die

The cliché that a Bond villain can’t just fucking kill James Bond is rarely more evident than in Live & Let Die.  Bond is constantly surrounded by bad guys with guns and yet not a one of them seems capable of  pulling the trigger.

When Bond gets home at the end of this one, I really feel that he’s got to consider himself lucky that the bad guys he faces are so fucking stupid.

Let’s look at a few examples, shall we?

The first time we meed “Mr. Big,” he looks Bond up once or twice and says the smartest thing he’s ever said.  “Kill him.”

His two henchmen take Bond outside and shoot him in the head try to lead him to a private place where they can shoot him and, of course, before they can do that he beats the shit out of them.  Lesson learned, right?  Next time you have a run in with Bond, just kill him!

Bond moves on to romance a lovely lady on Kanaga’s island full of (spoiler alert) dope and she gets freaked out by the voodoo dolls on the island.  She had good reason to be freaked out by them because one of them shoots her with a poison dart and kills her.  Bond finds her body and given he is now in their sights, the bad guys shoot him with a poison dart and kill him do nothing.

Later Bond is once again captured by Kanaga and Mr. Big (worst “secret” agent ever) and this time they decide the best way to kill him is to shoot him in the head take him out to an alligator farm and leave him to be eaten by a bunch of alligators.  Do they watch until the gators have finished their meal?  Hell no.  The guys a goner, right?

No.  He’s James fucking Bond.  Smart guys have a tough time killing james Bond.  How likely is it a bunch of stupid alligators are going to get the best him?

So Bond gets away.  Again.  Because that’s what he does.  Then he’s involved in a boat chase that is a hell of a lot more dangerous than the alligators.

Eventually, Kananga captures him again.

I think Bond does it on purpose, actually.  How can you get a reputation for being an escape artist if no-one ever captures you?  So he just shows up at the bad guy’s place, flashes his pearly whites into the nearest video camera and then just waits for them to nail him.  He knows they won’t just shoot him in the head.  If nobody has thought of it by now, they never will.

So Bond is captured again.  Kananga, having forgotten the fact that he’s ordered Bond killed twice and the dude is still there, decides that this time he’s going to shoot Bond in the head tie Bond up, give him a minor cut and let a shark eat him.  Given what has come before, you’d think that Kananga might keep his eye on Bond and possibly have a gun with him to shoot Bond if he manages to escape before the shark eats him.

But he doesn’t.  Because while he may have a great plan on how to corner the US heroin market, he can’t figure out that when a “secret” agent keeps showing up, it is time to ditch the elaborate death traps and shoot him in the head.

And you know what?  Live and Let Die is one of the best Roger Moore Bond films.  I enjoy the hell out of the movie.

But let’s be honest.  If Kanaga wasn’t such an idiot, James Bond would never have returned.