John Glen, “For Your Eyes Only” (1981)
After the excesses of previous Bond films which among other things referenced popular Hollywood films like “Jaws” and “Star Wars” at the time, “For Your Eyes Only” returns to the grittier style of the early Bond films of the early 1960s with a theme of vengeance and its vendetta-style consequences and a narrative based around two brothers-in-arms who fought in the Greek civil war in the 1940s and later became bitter enemies. This narrative embodies another theme that periodically surfaces in the James Bond films: people considered criminals due to their history and current activities are often more moral and committed to justice than are people who look clean and are favoured by governments for their heroics. Of course this 12th instalment in the James Bond series of films still has to satisfy a mainstream audience so it features its fair share of ogling at exotic locations, cultures and women as do the other films in the series.
The plot is densely packed with incidents that lead into various others, with lots of violence, chase sequences and much spent ammunition and bodies, which in turn lead into other incidents much like them. A UK reconnaissance vessel in the Ionian Sea, containing among other things an ATAC computer that communicates with UK Polaris subs, is sunk by an undersea mine. Both MI6 and the KGB learn of this incident and send their respective agents – MI6 sends Bond (Roger Moore) – to try to retrieve it. About the same time, British marine archaeologist Timothy Havelock is asked to search for the UK spy ship, which he does but he and his wife end up being shot dead by Cuban hit-man Gonzalez who had just brought their daughter Melina (Carole Bouquet) to them from abroad.
Bond is then tasked with finding Gonzalez which he does, and also discovers that the hit-man was paid for the job by Belgian criminal Emile Leopold Locque (Michael Gothard). Before Bond can approach Gonzalez, the Cuban is killed by Melina Havelock with a crossbow. Bond then goes to Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy to find Locque; here, he also meets Greek shipping tycoon Kristatos (Julian Glover), once handsomely rewarded with a medal by the British government, who tells Bond that Locque is employed by Milos Colombo (Chaim Topol). After a number of hair-raising incidents in which Bond has to rescue Melina again, is chased by the supposed ski champion boyfriend (John Wyman) of Kristatos’ protegee, aspiring figue skater Bibi Dahl (Holly Lynn Johnson), nearly ends up being a puck in a hockey game and fails to save Colombo’s Austrian countess girlfriend (Cassandra Harris) from being run over by Locque, Bond finally meets Colombo who informs him that Locque is actually working for Kristatos and Kristatos himself is working for the KGB.
Bond then accompanies Colombo on a raid on one of Kristatos’ warehouses in Albania where he discovers mines of a similar nature that sank the UK spy ship. Later, teaming up with Melina, he retrieves the ATAC from the sunken ship but Kristatos snatches it off them and subjects them to a harrowing ordeal (lifted out of the Ian Fleming novel “Live and Let Die”) of being dragged by a speedboat over coral reefs to be eaten by sharks. Bond and Melina narrowly escape but later discover that Kristatos has taken the ATAC to a cliff-top former Greek monastery to await the arrival of the Soviet agent for the handover.
The complicated plot barrels along breathlessly with very little time to take in the sights on Corfu and other Greek islands, let alone indulge in anything expendable like character development. Still, Glover and Colombo acquit themselves well in their respective roles mirroring each other even if their one and only direct confrontation doesn’t last long. Bouquet does solid duty as a vengeful Melina who turns out to be the one reliable ally Bond can depend on when he realises all others are either duplicitous or end up dead.
Of course most of the action pieces aren’t really necessary and the violence and sadism may be totally uncalled for – why not just shoot Bond and Melina dead instead of taking them for a water-ski ride? – but then there would not be much of a film left and it would only be a mundane spy flick.