**

This film is an exercise in sadism and an adventure laced with brutality in an almost endless cycle of gleeful ruthlessness. In other words, it goes way overboard in the violence department. Sure, that bit with the sharks is from Fleming, but the novel LIVE AND LET DIE had already been filmed. Instead, the filmmakers not only take the opportunity to torture and dismember poor Felix Leiter, they also have his bride savagely murdered. But this whole drug smuggling plot is very passé and it's only a cheap cosmetic attempt to make the James Bond film series appear more relevant. The filmmakers abandon the spirit of the Ian Fleming novels and present us with this rather mundane drug smuggling narrative instead of a espionage story. The filmmakers also jettison the sophistication of Fleming's literary creation and only provide a monochromatic action hero who attacks without any thought. Since the filmmakers don't provide any reason here to utilize Fleming's suave British secret agent, they have simply replaced him with just a brutish and vengeful thug -- a type of character more suited to the thespian talents of Steven Seagal rather than Timothy Dalton. But it must be pointed out that this script is not based on a James Bond novel since there were no more Fleming properties left to adapt to the screen. There are only very minor story elements that come from Fleming, but nothing really noteworthy. There was also a writer's strike at the time of this production. Richard Maibaum's involvement in the screenplay was extremely nil and it clearly shows within this film.