The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Budget $13 million. Opening dates: UK and US, December 19, 1974
Worldwide Box Office $97.6 million

Originally Written
Sunday, August 13, 2006

After a rather lack luster outing with Live and Let Die, Roger Moore returns in his second Bond film which increasingly steps it's game up and provides a much better end result. The Man With The Golden Gun, has everything you could possibly want in a Bond film, hot girls, risqué scenes, a midget, a golden gun and the return of the much beloved country bumpkin sheriff JW.

Britain is in the midst of an energy crisis, and with one of the most important people in the energy department missing Bond as been sent on the case to track him down. But something even more arises when a package arrives addressed to Bond with one single golden bullet the numbers 007 engraved on it. Only one man is known for his mysterious golden bullets and his golden gun... Francisco Scaramanga.

Francisco Scaramanga is one of the leading hit men in the world with an asking price of one million dollars per job. M has fears that this golden bullet could only mean one thing, that someone has hired Scaramanga to kill Bond. So to protect the current mission and those involved M pulls Bond off the energy case and Bond begins a hunt to find Scaramanga before Sacaramanga finds him, although it will be a difficult task because no one has ever seen the man with the golden gun.

As Bond closes in on Scarmanga he begins to realize that Scaramanga has something bigger up his sleeve than killing him, in fact Scaramanga and the current energy crisis both seem to begin to intertwine. Bond soon finds himself in a tough position when he is faced off against the sharp shooter and a gun that takes only one shot to kill!

The Man With The Golden Gun, is surprisingly very entertaining but at the same time it's completely campy. Things such as Scarmanga's third nipple, two young Asian girls beating the crap out of an entire class of martial arts students, a car that turns into an airplane and the return of JW from Live and Let Die, make this the funniest Bond to date.

Now the excess of campy humor doesn't help to make this a great Bond film but it does help to bring it out of the hole that the last film dug itself into. My favorite part was the return of JW who you might remember as the dim witted sheriff from the last film, he was the best part of that film.

The overdose of humor did seem to have somewhat of a negative effect on the film; it once again pulled it away from being a typical Bond film and ended up being a disguise to cover up a rather scattered story. I honestly couldn't explain the real plot of the film because it isn't well written. Scarmanga's part in the energy crisis isn't well explained and it seems to come down to him trying to obtain some device for his secret solar power plant on his island, but for what real purpose other than clean, green, free energy I have no clue.

The character's were all rather average, Roger Moore stepped it up a little more in this time around, beginning to grow more comfortable with the role, but he still seems to be too much of a "girly-man" to me. Christopher Lee and Hervé Villechaize are entertaining villains but they’re more comical instead of menacing. As for the Bond girls they probably provide some of the more risqué scenes yet to be done in a Bond film, other than that they end up being another couple of ditsy hot girls. In the end, The Man With The Golden Gun is extremely humorous and is well worth the watch but it's not a very good representation of what a great Bond film should be. It's enjoyable but you'll end up getting wrapped up more in the humor and lost in the rather dismal story.

7/10