Especially with [spoilers ahead] Leiter looking so jovial, shooting the breeze with Bond, even though his wife's dead and he's had vital pieces of his body gnawed off by sharks.
The movie should have ended immediately after Bond set Sanchez on fire. That was the raw, poignant ending this darker, revenge-fueled, personal stakes-filled Bond movie needed.
I guess it's never bothered me cause I grew up with this movie, but now that you mention it, it's an odd wrap up for a Bond film. They don't end that way. They end with the bad guy dead, the evil lair destroyed and making out with the dame.
shareThis is one of my favourite Bond films but I agree about the ending. It doesn't hurt the film overall for me because it's just a sign of the times.
In Lethal Weapon, two years earlier, Riggs stopped been suicidal and joined Murtaugh with his family for Christmas dinner while Elvis sang I'll Be Home For Christmas.
At the end of 2, despite been on the brink of death, and Rika been murdered, Riggs and Murtaugh are laughing and joking at the end while an upbeat George Harrison song starts.
At the end of Die Hard 2, the following year, despite the fact that many innocent passengers on a plane died earlier, forget that it's Christmas, and Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! breaks out.
Mainstream films around this time, no matter how violent and brutal they were or how dark the themes were, just didn't have the guts to end on a downer or a bittersweet tone.