The serpentine plotline of Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita begins its 117-minute slither when punkish, psychotic, and drug-ridden Nikita (Anne Parillaud) fires her gun into a cop's face following the stick-up of a drug store, and is promptly imprisoned. She is thrown into a dank cell, then injected with a substance and told it is a lethal toxin. Instead of dying, however, the comes to in an all-white interrogation room, where French intelligence officer Bob (Tchéky Karyo), informs her that an
alternate to execution exists: she can receive covert government training as an assassin. She accepts the bid, is rigorously trained, and later returns to society as a seemingly normal and gentle civilian, but falls in love with a drugstore employee while she's waiting for that first government assignment. The paradoxical concept of a young woman blossoming socially while carrying out cold-blooded murders was downplayed when La Femme Nikita was remade in America as the silly and disappointing Point of No Return, directed by John Badham with Bridget Fonda in the lead. A far less sociopathic TV-series version of La Femme Nikita surfaced on the USA cable network in early 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
[VIDEO] Before it spawned a cornucopia of television series knock-offs, writer/director Luc Besson's stylized 1990 French crime thriller set a new standard for the girl-with-a-gun movie trope.
A spy version of Pygmalion, complete with perverse romance, Nikita was well ahead of the curve when it came to women warriors as modern shoot-'em-up stars [Blu-ray].
Superb thriller scored to Eurotrash synth pop, La Femme Nikita sets out a whole world of espionage and violence, and engages with a wild yet sympathetic lead.
A lot diffrent than the Hollywood standards. And that's good. Good acting. Good Directing. I don't know how Luc Besson does it. But he got a very chill way of directing. You feel very relaxed while you'r watching. And it was nice to see the origin of Léon. Sick of the french right?...Sick of the french!
January 19, 2011
Martin Sahlin
Super Reviewer
I was disappointed. Perhaps because I used to watch the TV series, I was expecting something more like that. For some reason, the English words coming out of their mouths when they were obviously speaking French in the movie bothered me too, yet most of the time I never notice such things.This is the oldest movie
where I have seen the role of a 'cleaner' - someone who comes in to clean up the mess when the original agents mess up. You have to give the director credit for the great quality of the action scenes in a 20 year old movie.
No quotes approved yet for Nikita (La Femme Nikita). Logged in users can submit quotes.
Submit a Quote from 'Nikita (La Femme Nikita)'
A quote can be a single line from one character or a memorable dialog between several characters. Please make your quotes accurate. Quotes will be submitted for approval by the RT staff.
Example:
Luke: Alright. I'll give it a try. Yoda: No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
Top Critic
