20 James Bond References You Might Have Missed In Die Another Day
10. Assassination Attempt
James Bond is a licensed assassin, able to kill on the express orders of the British government; although it raises many questions about legality and civil liberties, it is hardly ever abused.
In From Russia With Love, Sean Connery's James Bond was equipped with a folding sniper's rifle by Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and assisted his Turkish host, Kerim Bey (Pedro Armendáriz) in assassinating Krilencu (Fred Haggerty), a Bulgarian who performed dirty tasks for the Russians.
Later, in The Living Daylights, Timothy Dalton's Double-0 Seven monitors the supposed defection of Soviet General Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé) using a sniper's rifle because his MI6 colleague, Saunders (Thomas Wheatley) fears that Koskov will be assassinated during his escape. When Bond discovers that the expected sniper is actually a cellist, Kara Milovy, he shoots her rifle out of her hands rather than killing her, claiming that he only kills professionals.
In Die Another Day, when Pierce Brosnan's James Bond parachutes into North Korea with his NSA colleague, Jinx, their aim is to kill Gustav Graves and disable his laser satellite, Icarus. Staying undercover at an enemy airfield, Bond and Jinx try to shoot Graves with a silenced sniper's rifle before he can board his Antonov cargo plane and attack South Korea. However, there is far too much movement to give them a clear shot at Graves and they are forced to board the plane.
Even though no shot is fired, this is a nice nod to Bond's earlier experience as a "trouble shooter".