| “ | Señor Bond, you got big cojones. You come here, to my place, without references, carrying a piece, throwing around a lot of money... but you should know something: nobody saw you come in, so nobody has to see you go out. | „ |
| ~ Sanchez to Bond. |
| “ | When it gets up to your ankles, you're going to beg to tell me everything. When it gets up to your knees, you'll kiss my ass to kill you. | „ |
| ~ Sanchez, about to feed Bond to a cocaine grinder. |
Franz Sanchez is the main antagonist of the 1989 James Bond film Licence to Kill. He is a powerful and ruthless Central American drug lord who was responsible for the maiming of Felix Leiter and the death of his wife.
He was portrayed by Robert Davi, who also played Alejandro Sosa in the video game Scarface: The World is Yours, Robert Masterson in The Taking of Beverly Hills, Goran Vata in The Expandables 3, and Hans Zarba in Son of the Pink Panther.
Personality
Sanchez is a Central American drug lord running his own empire in the fictitious nation of Isthmus City. Owner of a large luxury estate, protected by an army of henchmen and controller of the city President, Sanchez has either bribed, intimidated or killed most of the city’s officials. Heading an international drug cartel, Sanchez is both ruthless and merciless, yet cultured, refined and a man of his word. Sanchez rewards loyalty but promises death to anyone who double-crosses him. With paranoid tendencies relating to the loyalty of his men, Bond is able to exploit this weakness to get Sanchez to kill several of his own lieutenants when Bond convinces him they are cheating on him.
Biography
At the beginning of the film, Sanchez is successfully captured by the DEA with the help of James Bond and his friend Felix Leiter. However, whilst in police custody, Sanchez bribes DEA agent Ed Killifer and escapes custody. The drug lord then has Leiter's new wife, Della Churchill, murdered and Leiter maimed, but Bond retaliates by feeding Killifer to the shark that injured Leiter. Bond then becomes obsessed with getting revenge on Sanchez and chooses to resign from MI6 after M suggests Bond to go to another assignment. He sneaks aboard a boat named the WaveKrest, owned by Sanchez's henchman Milton Krest, steals $5 million of Sanchez's drug money and ruins the latest drug shipment.
Sanchez returns to his home in Isthmus City where Bond meets with him in person. Later on, after Sanchez has held a meeting with several drug barons from across the world, Bond destroys the bulletproof window in front of Sanchez's office with explosives and attempts to assassinate Sanchez. Unfortunately, he is captured at the last minute by British agents who were sent by M to return Bond to London. Sanchez arrives soon after, kills the agents, and takes Bond back to his home after noticing his unconscious body tied to a table (having previously been interrogated by the agents). Once there, Bond convinces the paranoid Sanchez that someone in his organization had paid the agents to kill him. Suspecting Krest, Sanchez visits him later that night on board the WaveKrest. Bond sneaks aboard and plants the money he had stolen earlier in a decompression chamber, which Sanchez soon discovers. Believing that Krest had ripped him off in order to pay the hit team, Sanchez throws him into the decompression chamber and kills him via explosive decompression.
Later on, Sanchez rewards Bond for the information he had given him and takes him to his drug plant, where Bond discovers Sanchez's plan to smuggle cocaine into Asia by dissolving it in gasoline. Bond is spotted by Sanchez's henchman Dario who had previously met Bond and blows his cover, prompting Bond to set Sanchez's laboratory on fire. Realizing that Bond is in fact a spy, Sanchez orders him to be placed into a cocaine crusher, but Bond is saved at the last moment by CIA pilot Pam Bouvier. After killing Dario by dropping him into the crusher, Bond pursues Sanchez in one of his gasoline-filled tanker trucks and a high speed chase ensues. After most of Sanchez's tanker trucks are destroyed, Bond catches up to Sanchez and they fight on the back of the final truck before reaching an incline and tumbling to the ground. The battered, gasoline-soaked Sanchez then prepares to kill Bond with a machete while claiming that Bond could have everything by working with him, but he is distracted when Bond offers to explain why he went out of his way to destroy his empire. Bond shows Sanchez the cigarette lighter Felix and his wife had given him on their wedding day to show his purpose of vengeance, before igniting it and immolating Sanchez. As the drug lord flails and screams in burning agony, he stumbles against the leaking tanker truck, causing it to explode and kill him.
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