LTK finale
crawfordboon
Posts: 126MI6 Agent
Watching LTK recently, I couldn't help but be shocked at just how quickly the whole heroin refining plant / monastic retreat falls to pieces. Bond caused a minor explosion in a labratory, yet this somehow causes a chain reaction in which the place is exploding in moments, causing a major evacuation. I thought it was a very sloppy bit of writing, when an explosive finale was required, to fail to give a plausible reason for it occurring.
And while we're at it, why does everyone keep running after the evacuation, the oil tanker chase scenes are exciting but there is no real reason to them. Sanchez could have got a safe distance away, brought everyone to a halt, and got the situation under control. Instead they flee like they have the army on their tail, it would have been far easier to defeat Bond if they had stayed at the base and defended themselves properly, without a confusing chase down the mountains.
Good film, but as with so many when he look at it more deeply, there are clearly flaws.
And while we're at it, why does everyone keep running after the evacuation, the oil tanker chase scenes are exciting but there is no real reason to them. Sanchez could have got a safe distance away, brought everyone to a halt, and got the situation under control. Instead they flee like they have the army on their tail, it would have been far easier to defeat Bond if they had stayed at the base and defended themselves properly, without a confusing chase down the mountains.
Good film, but as with so many when he look at it more deeply, there are clearly flaws.
Comments
If my aging memory serves me, the late Alfred Hitchcock once said something along these lines: he always liked to leave a loose thread or two dangling in the plot in order that the audience would say, after the film, "Hey, what about...?" but never during it.
Perhaps a more suitable angle would have been to use CIA pilot Bouvier to actually sabotage the plant in some crippling manner. It would have been more consistent with her character attributes, and maybe cut down on some of Wayne Newton's screentime
As has been stated, there are many instances like this that cause Bond fans to raise a Spockian eye brow from time to time.
I take the point about Sanchez fleeing though - never noticed that before; just why was he in such a hurry? And as you say, why didn't he just stop the car, shoot Bond then carry on?
Someone mentioned Hitchcock above - I believe he used to call these 'refrigerator moments' - something you only started to think about after you'd watched the film, arrived home, reached for a snack in the refrigerator and then said "hey, hang on a minute..."
They weren't necessarily left hanging deliberately, just plot holes that weren't fully resolved and he hoped no one would notice until after the film - therefore not important enough to hold up the dramatic tension.
My two cents on this issue in a thread from 19 years ago 😁:
I used to work in a pharmaceutical plant which had a lot of flammable solvents. Avoiding fires is a major health and safety point for a reason.
My reading of the film is that once the fire starts in the laboratory it spreads quickly through the vents to the other areas. Sanchez at one point screams "I don't give a sh*t about the setup". This and everyone panicking suggests to me that all the workers in the plant knew that everyone was ignoring basic health and safety and a fire could break out at any moment. (I don't mean to knock any particular nation but I am willing to bet that countries in Latin America have less regard to health and safety than those in Western Europe for example)
I think Sanchez panics and takes off with the tankers for a few reasons. First, he knows that the whole setup is going to blow up because of the fire started by Bond. Secondly, he probably thinks the Chinese will never go for the deal so he takes off with their investment money. Thirdly, already in the film Kwang was trying to expose the whole operation so Sanchez possibly believes that Bond is part of a wider party spying on his operations. Taking off with the tankers would allow him to at least be sure of keeping a sizable amount of his capital safe.
Sanchez's factory going up in flames, is partly his own doing. If he wasn't showboating to the investors and lighting that flask on fire, Bond wouldn't have had the opportunity to set fire to the lab.
I agree with your point @sinlum about Sanchez having little regard for fire safety. When Sanchez's workers try to put the fire out, the fire extinguishers don't seem to be working.
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