Back in the mid 1980s when Roger Moore quit James Bond, Pierce Brosnan was booked to be the new 007. But he got screwed because of his REMINGTON STEELE contract, and Timothy Dalton got the gig instead.
For the next few years, Brosnan did quite a few action pictures, almost as if he was trying to prove to EON Films that he could cut the martini. Some were good (THE FOURTH PROTOCOL) and some were like LIVE WIRE...they went hay wire.
Watching this on HBO, I noticed how this picture was shot after the Cold War ended and before the numerous terrorist attacks on America leading up to 9/11. Sounds almost notalgic probably for some of us.
Anyway, the two remarkable things in LIVE WIRE is that Brosnan does have the charm, the charisma, and the physical credibility to succede in action cinema. Second, the movie has a good kill-gimmick, I must say. A microscopic liquid explosive poured into water, which the person then consumes and their stomach acids "activate" the bomb. I'm surprised actually that Hollywood hasn't reused this idea yet.
Just too bad the movie just bombs flat. You have the whole psychobabble of Brosnan's kid drowning in a pool, and destroying his marriage. Quite frankly, I laughed at the sequence when the (stupid) girl just simply falls and sinks. The baddies are way too generic for my taste and when Brosnan goes all Commando, I wonder how a pretty D.C. bomb expert would know how to kick so much ass. There's an awkward KY Jelly gag to boot.
Then you have the sub-plot of her banging a corrupt Senator, which himself is a target of the arms-dealing mercenary bad guys. Funny enough, Ron Silver would end up playing another douchebag Senator in the much better TIMECOP a few years later. Would you be really surprised that she's back to screwing James Bond by the end?
I guess the only scene in LIVE WIRE I can immediately remember is a joke early on about Brosnan disarming a bomb underneath a rich pretty blonde's car, and remarking that she should wear some underwear. Such sexual chemistry and good humor in a scene, its obvious that Brosnan could be a better 007 than Dalton could ever be.
