Unlike some of the other Bond films, I feel The Man With the Golden Gun has only gotten better with age. It still has all the usual elements of a Bond movie, but is also a little bit different as well. It has a strong villain in the form of Christopher Lee and Roger Moore is a bit more comfortable as Bond in his second outing in the role. While it's not perfect, I do have fewer nitpicks on this one than some of the others.
James Bond has found himself in the cross hairs of the infamous and elusive assassin Francisco Scaramanga (played by Christopher Lee) when a golden bullet with Bond's code 007 etched on it is received by MI-6. Because of this perceived threat on his life, Bond is relieved of active duty and his mission to locate a scientist named Gibson, who may hold the key to solving the energy crisis with Solar Power. In response, Bond decides to unofficially go looking for Scaramanga directly. Bond is able to retrieve a spent bullet from one of Scaramanga's previous hits and with the help of Q (played by Desmond Llewelyn), is able to determine it's creator is a specialty gunsmith named Lazar working in Macau, China. Lucky for Bond, the gunsmith has a new shipment of bullets for Scaramanga and after some prodding from Bond gives up how the exchange is made. This leads him to Scaramanga's mistress, Andrea Anders (played by Maud Adams). He follows her to Hong Kong and after pressuring her to tell him about Scaramanga's whereabouts, she directs him to the Bottom's Up Club. Bond finds himself at the location of Scaramanga's next hit, the missing scientist Gibson whose solar power device, the Solex Agitator, is then stolen off Gibson by Scaramanga's henchman, Nick Nack (played by Herve Villechaize). The police soon arrive but before Bond has a chance to plead his innocence he is carted off by Lt. Hip (played by Soon-Tek Oh) and taken to the partially sunken ruins of the Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong Victoria harbor, which has been converted into a secret headquarters for MI6. There he meets with M and is given the mission to retrieve the Solex and assassinate Scaramanga. To assist in his mission, Bond teams up with Lt. Hip and local MI6 agent Mary Goodnight (played by Britt Ekland)
The second outing for Roger Moore's Bond is a bit stronger that the previous film and it certainly has a better villain with Christopher Lee as Scaramanga, who looks like he's having a blast playing the role. He certainly ranks up there with the best villains of the Bond series and is certainly one of the most memorable for me. I love the interplay between Bond and Scaramanga in the last quarter of the movie. Scaramanga sees Bond as his true equal and wants a true mano a mano duel to see who is truly the better assassin. Nick Nack has routinely hired other assassins to try and kill Scaramanga to keep him sharp and Scaramanga has bested them all. He sees the seemingly indestructible Bond as the true test of his skills. I also appreciated the relationship between Scaramanga and Nick Nack and their playful antagonism towards one another.
There are a few elements that keep this entry from being a true classic Bond film. First off is bringing back Sheriff J.W Pepper (played by Clifton James) from Live and Let Die. This is easily one of the most obnoxious characters in the entire series and seeing him again is just painful. Whoever had that brilliant idea should be fired. This entry also has one of the coolest stunts in the entire Bond series as Bond corkscrew flips a car over a river to get to the other side more quickly and the filmmakers go and ruin this awe inspiring stunt by putting the sound of a slide whistle over it. The third thing I have to make note of is the character of Mary Goodnight, who is Bond's assistant and fellow agent but is so utterly incompetent it's shocking. I can't believe Bond keeps her around, no matter how good she looks in a bikini.
Still, The Man With the Golden Gun isn't all bad. It gets by nicely on the strength of the performances by Moore, Lee and Villechaize and remains entertaining throughout. There are some parts that I wish they had done differently or left out altogether and because of them this one too falls somewhere in the middle for me. It's not classic Bond, but I think there's a enough good stuff here to still merit a recommendation.
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