| “ | I want you to know this is nothing personal. It's purely... business. | „ |
| ~ Sanchez to Felix Leiter |
Franz Sanchez is a ruthless and powerful South American drug lord and the main antagonist of the 1989 James Bond film Licence to Kill.
He is portrayed by Robert Davi.
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 drugs 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 furiously throws Krest 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 he is saved at the last moment by his partner Pam Bouvier. After killing Dario by dropping him into the crusher instead, 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, but he is distracted when Bond offers to explain why he went out of his way to destroy his empire, figuring out that Sanchez was too dangerous to be left alive. Bond shows Sanchez the cigarette lighter Felix and his wife had given him on their wedding day, 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, ending Sanchez's life for good & all, and Bond flees from the explosion before Bouvier arrives and tells Bond to get in the truck. A party is held for the celebration for the defeat of Sanchez as Bond gets a call from Felix who tells him that M is giving him his job back and Bond falls in love with Bouvier.
Gallery
