Review of Nikita (1990) by Jordan T — 12 Jan 2010

After a rough day at school, work, you name it, there's nothing quite as satisfying as to recline in a comfy chair and watch, as a scene in LA FEMME NIKITA goes, a plucky Frenchwoman with bad teeth (but nice legs, I must add) stab a pencil into a guy's hand and yowl "my name is NIKITA!".

It's that kind of a movie. For me it belongs in the "guilty pleasure" oeuvre, right next to MEAN GIRLS and BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA.

But it is well made, you can't deny Besson of that. It's compelling from start to finish, boasting great cinematography (camera angles/shots= superb) and a sleek Moroder-esque score. There is a sublime action sequence in NIKITA when the pulsing Euro soundtrack is reduced to a brilliant pots and pans mettalic beat. Again, it's that kind of movie.

The plot may sound a bit familiar, as its ilk has been used before in action movies. Our heroine is a punk twenty-something year old, living like a rat on the Paris streets. Along with her are a group of brain dead dolts, who decide to rob a little pharmaceutical store in the dead of night. They get so carried away that they shoot the night manager and smash the place in pieces. A special police squad comes in with some of those sleek remote shooting guns and slaughters them. As they cautiously peer through the stores wreckage, we first come upon those famous legs-- sexy, but very dangerous. Dangerous enough to kick the poor guy in the balls.

She's taken into police custody, who judge her too good a prospect to pass up-- her death sentence is commuted, and she is sent to a school for special operatives. Nikita puts up a fight the first time she walks into the police academy, but she decides that it is better to be a government agent than dead and goes through with the training. Soon she is "released" in Paris with a proviso that she execute a government mission every 6 months-- the kind of mission that involves taking people out. Her first mission involves killing a couple in a fancy restaurant, then high tailing it out to save her ass. This she finds near impossible, with three pissed as hell goons dropping ammo on her from all sides. In a brilliant scene, a thug fires a RPG into where she's hiding. In a last act of desperation, she throws herself down a convenient food chute (the fight takes place in the kitchen), bright orange flames just above her.

Bruised, disheartened, and disillusioned-- but alive-- she goes over the mission with her handler, who she feels has betrayed her. Shortly afterwards, she meets a man in the outside world, a nice guy that she develops a relationship with. It's complicated.

You can't quite pigeonhole LA FEMME NIKITA entirely in the action genre. It's more of a Crime Thriller/Romance, an odd combination. But Luc Besson makes it viable, a fun ride that delivers on thrills-- with style to spare.