Focus Of The Week: Dario
Insider

Focus Of The Week: Dario

Licence To Kill's menacing henchman

Dario (Benicio Del Toro) works as a key enforcer for Franz Sanchez, a Central American drug lord. Sanchez treats Dario, the youngest member of his inner circle, like a younger brother.

Dario demonstrates his skill with a Bowie knife when he arrives in Cray Cay with Sanchez to retrieve the drug lord’s girlfriend, Lupe Lamora. Dario removes the heart of her illicit lover, Alvarez, and provides Sanchez with a “little valentine.” After DEA agent Felix Leiter, who has been hunting Sanchez for years, finally captures him, Dario exacts revenge by stabbing Della, Felix’s bride. Dario then helps Sanchez lower Leiter into a shark tank.

Dario acquires Leiter’s secret files and eliminates all of Leiter’s contacts in his investigation of Sanchez except one, Pam Bouvier. Dario travels to the Barrelhead Bar in Bimini to kill her and shoots her in the back as she speeds away in boat with 007. Dario thinks she is dead, unaware that her Kevlar vest stopped the bullets.

When Bond participates in a tour of Sanchez’s drug processing plant, Dario recognizes him. His cover exposed, Bond sets the lab ablaze, but Sanchez captures and interrogates him. When Bond refuses to speak, Dario throws him onto a conveyor belt leading to a pulveriser. Before Dario can kill Bond, Pam appears through the cocaine mist and Dario momentarily thinks she is ghost. Pam shoots Dario, and Bond hurls him into the pulveriser.

Related Stories

More