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

Was Felix high on painkillers...

posted 12 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!

[–] Conquerer13 11 years ago

I think it would have served the story so much better if Felix had been killed entirely. And if the thought of killing off a longtime Bond franchise character scares anyone, they already cut off his leg which renders him useless already -- why not go further and kill the guy? Would have made the revenge story so much better. Still at the end of the day it is a great film, but like people have been saying here the ending scene is a bit strange in the context of the film and overall it's not as powerful of a revenge story with him still alive (yes, his wife was killed but that's not enough).

[–] Mr_Blonde3 11 years ago

The decision to keep Felix alive was based on the Fleming novel, I believe. In the novel version of "Live and Let Die", Leiter loses his arm and half of his leg. The movie limits it to just his leg.

I love to love my Lisa.

[–] bradhig 11 years ago

Who was that girl at the end with Felix? We know Q was hanging around maybe he found a way to bring back Della? Felix should have died so he could be in heaven with Della.

[–] TheLordofTheHarvest 11 years ago

John Terry from "The Living Daylights" was terrible, I'm glad he didn't come back.

Hedison was the best choice for this movie, but they botched the ending up so bad that it requires at least dis-belief from me to work. He has to be on pain pills, it made him chatty and forget about his surroundings so there you go. But I do agree that needed a more serious scene.

The whole pool ending itself was great though, it was a fitting end to the classic phase of the Bond series from 1962-1989.

[–] SuperDevilDoctor 11 years ago

As bad as Hedison is in the final (hospital phone call) scene, he is nontheless excellent in Felix's key moment in the film: When he learns his wife is dead and is then lowered into the shark tank. ("See you in HELL!!!")

[–] ExpFil 8 years ago

I wish he'd squeaked the following words: "Help me! Help meeee!"

[–] bradhig 10 years ago

Did anyone notice the woman beside Felix while he was on the phone? Could it be Della having survived somehow?

[–] Bullingdon 8 years ago

The character of Felix in the history of Bond films is all over the place. He has literally been played by nine different actors and with very little continuity between them. An integral character in terms of number of appearances but totally forgettable most of the time. The Felix in LTK is a laughably empty character; more of a place holder or pawn used simply to give Bond something to avenge. That a Bond went so over the top in his quest to avenge the disrespected Felix (to the point of being the most bloodlusted Bond to date!) probably says more about Bond's psychological instability than his loyalty to Felix. But Felix has to be generic and uncool by design, right? He started off handsome and chiseled in Dr No then Connery and Co. ditched that type of Felix out of fear of the American agent character overshadowing Bond perhaps. It was not until decades later that Jeffery Wright gave us the best Felix by default simply because he was treated as a somewhat more three dimensional character in Casino Royale.

[–] McQueen1980 8 years ago

The scene was about ten seconds long and he was in a hospital bed with a sling on his arm

So pain killers would not be out of the question!

[–] zestywhite 7 years ago

I think someone on here hit the nail on the head with the explanation that Felix was masking his pain. He lives and works in a very macho environment and he's an older guy of the generation that show as little emotion as possible.
I imagine his cheery nature dissolving away as his phone call ends and the nurse leaves his room - to the anguish of replaying the horror of the last few months over again in his mind.

[–] TMC-4 (19418) 6 years ago

I never understood why M after all of the trouble that Bond caused him would be so open to invite him back into the British secret service? I get that they wanted to return things to status quo for the next movie, which unfortunately Timothy Dalton never got a chance to make. But they could've written it in a way where it didn't seem so lazy and inconsistent. One idea that I had is what if Timothy Dalton's Bond became something like The Equalizer (that old TV show from the '80s with Edward Woodard which was kind of James Bond meets Death Wish).

[–] TMC-4 (19418) 6 years ago

Another thing that I meant to had, it was established early on in The Living Daylights, that Timothy Dalton's Bond hates his job and told Saunders that if M fired him he would thank him for it. And then in Licence to Kill, Bond wasn't hesitant to hand him his resignation (which of course naturally, M wouldn't accept) as means of pursuing his vendetta against Sanchez. It doesn't make much logical sense for why Dalton's Bond would go back to work for Robert Brown's M given the personal animosity between them.

[–] Retromogul (1082) 6 years ago

Haha I remember this post from IMDB and it's so true...He seemed to have recovered from the death of his wife quicker than his injuries. That scene should have been played much more seriously but it seemed they really wanted to rush through a cheery ending after all the darkness.