Which Dalton Film Has The Better Villain?
The one aspect of The Living Daylights that kind of glares in hindsight is, in fact, its villains. Joe Don Baker’s arms dealer Brad Whitaker would have been enough to suffice, with the most threatening presence in the film, the aptly named Necros (Andreas Wisniewski), acting as a fantastic secondary villain. Sadly, while Jeroen Krabbé does put in a terrific performance as the foppish 007 foil of General Georgi Koskov, he’s a bit too silly of an antagonist to be effective. Meanwhile, License To Kill not only gives us the intensely threatening Sanchez, whom Robert Davi absolutely makes into a formidable presence, but he also has hired muscle that backs his vicious ways; muscle that includes an absurdly entertaining Benicio del Toro as young buck Dario. Again, License To Kill scores another cunning point by doing with two villains what its predecessor tried to do with three.
