Review of The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) by Matthew D — 31 May 2017

The elegantly straightforward brief that sets 007 up as hunter and hunted is played out well as a cat-and-mouse thriller for the first half. After that is makes a sudden veer into farcical comedy with characters who are annoying or incompetent because it's meant to be funny (sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't), a poorly-handled subversion of classic Bond elements and the complete undermining of any tension that had built up.

The remainer of the movie is held together as best it can by the top performances from Moore and Christopher Lee. Moore is given more to do than in his debut and is able to better define his Bond. Like his first mission this is filled with a lot of weird elements and odd decisions, but at least these ones are more memorable and more entertaining.

It's certainly never boring and If you can manage to get past the change from what the film seemed to be based on its early promise, and take the rest for what it is, it has a kind of goofy, fun charm that's hard to hate.