L/R: Licensed By Royalty Mission File 2: Targets (DVD)
APPROX. 75 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2003 - MPA RATING: MA15
" [This disc] was a good old fashioned popcorn piece, of the kiss-kiss bang-bang variety indeed.
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This second installment of Geneon´s secret agent series, "L/R: Licensed by Royalty" comes with one less episode than the first volume. Strangely, I found this was a little like hard drugs- the first hit was kind of rocky, but the second was sweeter. The episodes are titled "Tear Drop", "Lost Recognition", and "Ivory".
Although I was initially a little down on this title, it´s grown on me. The trailer boasts that this show is of the "kiss-kiss, bang-bang" variety. According to the Internet, that phrase means that this series is similar to the "James Bond series"- smooth agents, hot women, high stakes capers. The main characters have just the right balance of skill and panache to pull off their roles. Their personalities also nicely compliment each other´s, so the buddy-spy part of the show works, too. Most of the episodes aren´t directly related, but the common threads of the mystery of the Fifteen Year Princess and Ishtar´s future are enough to give this kind of show all of the continuity it needs.
The "James Bond" connection doesn´t end at the story´s premise. The country of Ishtar is practically a carbon copy of Great Britain. The political climate is even similar to Great Britain´s, as Ishtar has a rocky relationship with a smaller, neighboring island, called "Ivory Island." However, "L/R" doesn´t make any pretensions, it just tries to entertain. The cases are interesting enough and have enough action to keep my interest.
More time was spent on this disc towards giving the main characters, Jack and Rowe, a little more definition than on the previous disc. In the first episode, the two are hot on the trail of an assassin named Stratos. It later develops that Jack and Rowe are the targets, so they have to try to somehow avoid being killed by a man that never misses his target. I especially enjoyed when Jack walks into the warehouse where Rowe and Stratos are facing off, and, although he´s wearing an easygoing smile for the ladies present, he´s pulled his gun behind his back.
The final two episodes are continuous. Ishtar is being rocked by a new wave of terrorism from an enigmatic person known only as "Angel." A piece of Jack´s past comes back to haunt him when he and Rowe have to work with Jack´s previous partner. Apparently, he and Rowe have only been working together for a few years. The investigation takes them back to the Ivory Island, where they have to save Noelle from an assassination. It´s not clear if the royal family or some other agency is behind it.
The main problem with this series that keeps it from being A-class is that it´s too slick for its own good. Jack and Rowe are just a little TOO good, so you never have to really worry that anything bad will happen to him. There are occasions when the cases step over the line from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle-esque mysteries that the viewer can mostly put together on their own, to Agatha Christie-like mysteries, where quite a bit of the clues aren´t available to the viewer and the detectives reveal next to nothing about how they arrived at their conclusions.
