The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Starring: Roger Moore, Bernard Lee, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams, Hervé Villechaize, James Cossins, Clifton James

Director: Guy Hamilton

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B-

Holy fuck these movies are racist.  That was what went through my mind pretty much the entirety of this movie.  The series, so far, is rife with stereotypes and negative depictions of anyone who isn’t a white British subject.  These movies are really racist – like ridiculously so – and just seem to get worse as they go on.  Likewise with the misogamy.  I wouldn’t say James Bond, the character, is himself a mysoganist, but the movies definitely paint women in a certain way.

The Man with the Golden Gun takes Bond (Moore) back to Asia, this time Thailand where he’s searching for assassin Francisco Scaramanga (Lee), known as the man with the golden gun because he has a golden gun that he uses to shoot people with gold bullets.  One such bullet was sent to MI6 with Bond’s code etched into it, leading them to believe that Bond is his next target.  Along the way, Bond acquires an assistant in the form of Miss Goodnight (Ekland), who he is rather determined to sleep with, flirts heavily with Scaramanga’s mistress Andrea Anders (Adams), and comes up against Sacramanga’s dwarf manservant Nick Nack (Villechaize).

Midway through the movie I sent a friend a text saying “I just saw James Bond give a sumo wrestler a wedgie before being knocked out by an ugly midget.”  I’m not sure what else I can say to critique this film than the massive “what the fuck” that I thought when I saw that scene and that I’m expecting you thought when you read that sentence.  I think if I really put a lot into a review of this movie it would involve taking this movie as serious, and I can’t take something serious that involves a scene like that.

I kind of came to that conclusion about mid-way through this movie; if I don’t take them seriously and just go with the flow, no matter how ridiculous it gets, they’re more enjoyable. I don’t think these are actually good movies, but they can be fun.  That having been said, I'm still kind of annoyed with Miss Goodnight for sleeping with Bond.