You’ve Got Him - Shoot Him Hey, Bad Guys! Stop Trying To Be Creative When A Single Bullet To The Head Will Do

The new James Bond movie (“Goldeneye”) opens nationally Friday, and if the bad guys are as dim-witted as usual, Agent 007 has nothing to worry about.

If I were running SPECTRE, I’d start by giving my operatives one piece of advice. Boys, I’d say, the minute you capture Bond, do yourselves a big favor: Shoot him.

Don’t toss him into a tank filled with man-eating sharks. Don’t handcuff him to an atomic bomb with the timer set to go off in 10 minutes. Don’t strap him to an operating table with a high-powered laser inching steadily toward his head.

Just shoot him! For some reason, though, the bad guys don’t seem to want to do this.

Instead of plugging him right there and getting it over with, they always say something like: “Ah, Mr. Bond, so good of you to join us! Unfortunately, you came at a rather, er, inconvenient time. Niko, take Mr. Bond down to the launch site and see that he’s comfortable.

“Have a pleasant trip, Mr. Bond. Ha, ha, ha … !”

Next thing you know, a couple of SPECTRE gorillas are chaining Bond to a Saturn 5 rocket and Mission Control is beginning a countdown.

Well, you know what happens next.

In no time flat, Bond wriggles out of his chains, overpowers the security force, frees the friendly CIA agent chained along with him and returns to muck up whatever nefarious scheme the bad guys were involved in.

I’ve seen it a thousand times. And the shame of it is, it doesn’t have to happen.

Again, if you capture Bond, JUST SHOOT HIM!

That way it’s no fuss, no muss. Plus, then the guy is out of your hair and you can get on with your plans for cornering the world’s gold supply, achieving global domination, or whatever.

Here’s another piece of advice I’d give the bad guys: Let’s think about working together when you’ve got Bond surrounded in those fight scenes.

What usually happens is first one guy charges Bond and promptly gets his windpipe snapped with a karate chop.

Then when that’s over with, another guy charges Bond and gets an elbow in the stomach.

Then another guy charges Bond and takes a knee to the groin, and so on.

I’m just thinking out loud here, but why don’t all of you charge him at the same time? By rushing him one at a time, you’re destroying the whole concept of strength in numbers. It’s just plain old stupidity, is what it is. Remember, you’re the bad guys. You don’t have to fight fair.

Now here’s a final word of advice for you SPECTRE operatives.

Let’s say you’ve captured Bond and, OK, you’re going to shoot him. But you want to have a little fun with him first.

This is a big mistake. But if you’re determined to humiliate him before you pull the trigger, don’t let him have a cigarette. Because those cigarettes of his, they always turn out to be miniature missile-launchers. And next thing you know, the whole room has been blown away and five of your best men have been wasted and Bond is jumping out the window.

Anyway, I hope at least some of this is of some small help to you people.

Then again, you guys have been screwing up against Bond for more than 30 years now.

Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.