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La Femme Nikita (1991)
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Movie Review by Mitch August 22nd, 2006
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Nikita and her friends try to steal drugs from a pharmacy and get caught. She is tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Before her sentence can start the government fakes her death and for three years trains her to be an assassin. She is given a cover identity and allowed to live her own life, but when she gets a call for “Josephine”, she gets to work. She meets a man and gets engaged and tries to balance her personal life with her professional life and fails.
Even though it has been quite a few years since I have seen the remake called The Point of No Return starring Bridget Fonda, I believe I liked the remake better. It also may be that La Femme Nikita was not made for American audiences and has a style quite different from more mainstream movies. This came out a few years before The Professional and it shows. The style was better and I just felt more involved in The Professional, but I have already reviewed that movie. To me this movie didn't have much oomph to it. The dubbing was absolutely horrible, especially in the opening scene and anytime Nikita got excited or anguished she just sounded whiny. I would comment on the casting but the only person I know who they are is Jean Reno (another Cleaner! lol) and his was a small part. I watched a few select scenes in the original French and it was a slight improvement. Even though I can't speak a lick of French, there seemed to be more emotion.
Another issue I had, which is all me, is that I tended to keep comparing it with what I remember of Point of No Return which made it kind of hard to sit back and get into the film What will be the real test will be when I review Point of No Return in a week or two. Maybe i will look back on this with kinder eyes.
What I did like was the way they showed time passing, with one scene ending with Nikita's 20th birthday and the next starting on her 23rd. Same for when she first meets Marco, him saying that they have been together for 6 months. I also enjoyed Marco's little speech while Nikita was in the bathroom putting the gun together. He was meaning one thing while she could have interpreted it in a totally different way. I'm not quoting it because it's not on the IMDB and I already sent the DVD back to Netflix. Yes I can be stupid sometimes. And you gotta love her hat. If you've seen the movie you know exactly what I am talking about.
I hated the ending, to me it just seemed to fizzle out. No sense of closure at all. She just disappeared? If Marco really loved her do you think he would've just let her walk away? Or was this a feeble attempt at setting up for a sequel?
Not a horrible flick, at least I wasn't counting the minutes till it ended. It will be interesting to compare with the original. I also wonder if I enjoyed PONR more because I saw it first? We'll find out. Stay tuned.
Best Lines:
Marco:You know this could dangerous.
Nikita: What's the worst that could happen?
Marco: Leftovers?
Nikita: Mister, is this heaven here or not?
Not too many good lines from this one.
So, until the Earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, keep reading.
Mitch
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