The Living Daylights (1987)

  Finally finishing up all the Bond movies.  I didn't think Timothy Dalton was going to be any good but I was pleasantly surprised.

Bond (Timothy Dalton) is tasked with providing cover for a high-ranking Russian defector named Koskov (Jeroen Krabbe) as he escapes from a symphony.  Bond foils an assassination attempt by a pretty sniper (Maryam d'Abo) but feels like something is fishy.  There's no time to look into it, though, because Koskov thinks that his KGB superior (John Rhys-Davis) has gone full Stalin and is purging spies.  Sure enough, a blonde killer named Necros (Andreas Wisniewski) busts up the place and kidnaps Koskov.  Bond is told to go to Tangiers and kill the KGB boss.  Instead, he heads back to the symphony and nabs the girl.  Turns out, she's Koskov's girlfriend and was only doing what he asked her to do.  Now convinced that something's going on, Bond strings her along with promises that Koskov is going to help her defect.  By following the money, Bond figures out that Koskov is smuggling heroin from Afghanistan in order to buy weapons from a crazy arms dealer (MST3K favorite Joe Don Baker).  He and the girl are caught but manage to escape and free one of the captured Afghanis (Art Malik), who then helps him catch up to Koskov.

This was one of the better Bond movies, as far as having an actual plot, but time has not been kind.  Specifically, the changing politics from the 80's to now makes this movie hysterical when it finally gets to Afghanistan.  Then, later, when one of them makes a joke about getting stopped at the airport...oh my God, you guys.  I laughed so hard.  I'm probably going to Hell, but I laughed. So. Hard.