In Bilbao, MI6 agent James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) meets a Swiss banker to retrieve money for Sir Robert King (David Calder), a British oil tycoon and friend of M (Dame Judi Dench). Bond interrogates the banker as to the identity of someone who killed an MI6 agent (from whom the money was stolen in the first place. The money was paid by King in exchange for a report that King thought identified terrorists trying to destroy his oil pipeline. But the report turns out to be from the Russian nuclear commission, but the banker is killed and Bond forced to escape. Some unknown assassin helps him escape with the money before he can learn. At the MI6 headquarters in London, the money is revealed to be laced with explosives that kills King (explosive is triggered by a lapel on King's coat). Bond chases the assassin by boat on the Thames to the Millennium Dome, where she attempts to escape via hot air balloon. Bond offers her protection in exchange for the name of the real person behind King's murder, but she refuses and blows up the balloon at the cost of her life. Basically Bond delivered the explosives right to King. Bond has a dislocated collar bone due to the incident, a secret which was known to select people in MI6. Bond traces the recovered money to Renard (Robert Carlyle), a former KGB agent turned high-tech terrorist. Years ago, Renard kidnapped Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) in exchange for a massive ransom demand. The ordeal resulted in a failed assassination attempt by MI6 after M advised King not to pay the ransom, and left Renard with a bullet lodged in his brain which renders him impervious to pain as well as slowly killing off his other senses. Before the events of the film, he was spotted operating in some very politically dangerous countries in the world including but most likely not limited to Afghanistan, Moscow, Russia, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, Beirut, Cambodia and Pyongyang to start funding his anarchist terrorist operation. Renard now seeks revenge on both the King family and MI6 for his death sentence, as the bullet will kill him when it reaches the center of his brain, a KGB agent-turned-terrorist. The amount recovered by Bond was exactly the amount of the ransom demand by Renard for Elektra. M assigns Bond to protect King's daughter, Elektra King; Bond flies to Azerbaijan, where Elektra is overseeing the construction of an oil pipeline. During a tour of the pipeline's proposed route in the mountains, Bond and Elektra are attacked by a hit squad in armed, para-glider-equipped snowmobiles. Q (Desmond Llewelyn): MI6's "quartermaster" (Last appearance). R (John Cleese): Q's assistant and appointed successor. A humorous James Bond refers to him as "R": "If you're Q....does that make him R?" Bill Tanner (Michael Kitchen): M's Chief of Staff. Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond): M's secretary. Bond visits Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) at a casino (where Elektra loses $1MM to Zukovsky in a card game) to acquire information about Elektra's attackers from whom Bond had recovered a parachute branded with Russian Atomic Center, Anti-terrorism Unit. After losing, Elektra says "There is no point in living, if you can feel alive." After seducing Electra, Bond discovers that Elektra's head of security, Sasha Davidov (Ulrich Thomsen), is secretly in league with Renard. Bond kills Davidov and boards a plane bound for a Russian ICBM base in Kazakhstan. Posing as a Russian nuclear scientist, Bond meets American nuclear physicist Christmas Jones (Denise Richards). Jones is at the base removing weapons-grade plutonium from bombs and helps defusing them. Bond is taken underground to inspect the work done so far, to certify it. He finds Renard working in the underground chambers. When confronted Renard tells Bond that he spared Bond's life at the banker's office since Bond was delivering the money on Renard's behalf. Renard distracts Bond with the threat of killing Elektra, and utters the same words that Elektra said to Bond at the Casino. Renard escapes when Jones identifies Bond as a fraud and is attacked by the Russian forces protecting the base. Renard also knew exactly where Bond's shoulder was unhealed. Renard removes the GPS locator card and weapons-grade plutonium from a nuclear bomb. Renard steals the bomb and flees, leaving everyone to die. Bond and Jones escape the exploding silo with the locator card. Back in Azerbaijan, Elektra has called M to take charge when Renard strikes her pipeline. Bond discloses to M that Elektra may not be as innocent as she seems. He suggests that Elektra was the insider who switched the pins on her own father, and hands her the locator card as proof of the theft: an alarm sounds, revealing that the stolen bomb from Kazakhstan is attached to an inspection rig heading towards the oil terminal. The inference being Renard is detonating the nuke in Elektra's pipeline at the behest of the Russians, who have three competing pipelines and would be happy to see her's go away. Bond and Jones enter the pipeline to deactivate the bomb, and Jones discovers that half of the plutonium is missing. They both jump clear of the rig and a large section of the pipe is destroyed. Bond and Jones are presumed killed. Back at the command center, Elektra reveals that she killed her father as revenge for using her as bait for Renard. She abducts M, whom she resents for advising her father not to pay the ransom money. Bond accosts Zukovsky at his caviar factory in the Caspian Sea as he wants to know what did Elektra pay him for at the casino, and they are attacked by Elektra's helicopters. Zukovsky's henchman Bull was secretly working for Elektra and alerts her. Zukovsky reveals his arrangement with Elektra was in exchange for the use of a submarine captained by Zukovsky's nephew, Nikolai. The group goes to Istanbul, where Jones realizes that if Renard were to insert the stolen plutonium into the submarine's nuclear reactor, the resulting nuclear meltdown would destroy Istanbul, sabotaging the Russians' oil pipeline in the Bosphorus. Elektra's pipeline is planned to go around Istanbul, dramatically increasing the value of her own oil. Bond gets a signal from the locator card (which he had given to M) from the Maiden's Tower - just before Zukovsky's henchman Bull (Goldie) blows up the command center. Zukovsky is knocked unconscious, and Bond and Jones are captured by Elektra's henchmen. Jones is taken aboard the submarine, which was seized by Renard's men. Bond is taken to the tower, where Elektra tortures him with a garrote device. Elektra reveals that when her father refused to pay ransom, she seduced Renard and turned him to work for her. Zukovsky and his men seize the tower, but Zukovsky is shot by Elektra. The dying Zukovsky uses his cane gun to free Bond. Bond frees M and kills Elektra. Bond dives after the submarine, boards it and frees Jones. He wants to surface the submarine, but Renard attacks and destroys the controls and the submarine sinks instead. The submarine's hull ruptures as it bottoms in the Bosphorus. Bond fights Renard and kills him. Bond and Jones escape from the submarine, leaving the flooded reactor to detonate underwater. Later, Bond and Jones share a romantic evening in Istanbul and end up in bed together which is being monitored by MI6 satellites.
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