the original
- Nikita review by CP Customer
brilliant better that any american 'hollywood version.
Edgy, violent, aggressive (and they are different) and spellbinding.
A wonderful night in with a bottle of wine and good chats afterwards.
4 out of 4 members found this review helpful.
Fantastic
- Nikita review by GI
Director Luc Besson's highly stylised thriller is a real treat and it's been much imitated and spawned a TV series. It's a gritty adult thriller with rock video distorted imagery and some interesting themes about redemption and feminism. Former dancer Anne Parillaud plays the title role, she's a violent, sociopathic junkie convicted of murdering a policeman. The Government fakes her suicide and takes her to be trained as a covert Government assassin. But as she begins anew including rediscovering herself as a woman she yearns for a normal life. But trapped by her past and forced to carry out state sponsored murder she risks returning to her old ways and it's only her love for Marco (Jean Hugues Anglade) that keeps her sane. Her handler Bob (Tchéky Karyo) needs one final mission from her before he'll release her. This is a genre piece but with all the trademarks of European arthouse and the end result is a fantastically entertaining film. It's violent but never slips into gratuitousness and the appearance of Jean Reno as Victor The Cleaner is highly memorable. This is a great film and if you love a good adult thriller then check this out as soon as you can.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Great Story, Terrible Dubbing
- Nikita review by CP Customer
An excellent story ruined by terrible dubbing. I'd far rather watch this movie in the original French language with subtitles. The voice overs were so inappropriate that it was laughable.
1 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Lipstick, Lethality, and the Illusion of Liberation
- Nikita review by griggs
La Femme Nikita is Luc Besson fulfilling his "Pygmalion-with-a-pistol" fetish. It’s slick, stylish, and occasionally brilliant—but let’s not pretend it’s feminist cinema. Nikita’s transformation from junkie to state assassin only “succeeds” once she can shoot a man and apply eyeliner. It’s less about empowerment, more about male fantasy: unruly women as wild things to be dressed up and broken in.
Strip away the gloss, and what’s left is more troubling. Besson flirts with themes of rebirth and control. Still, Nikita never really owns her narrative—she’s sculpted, surveilled, and shaped by others, including the camera. Even her romance feels like an assignment.
Yet it works—just. The pace zips, the set-pieces land, and there’s enough bite to stop it slipping into total style-over-substance. It’s fun, but faintly sour.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Hot Mess
- Nikita review by Steve
High concept arthouse thriller, where the concept is Anne Parillaud in a Little Black Dress holding a huge automatic pistol. Which- of course- she immediately puts in her mouth... It begins as a Pygmalion story with the junkie cop killer made-over into a sexy gamine assassin... who falls in love with her instructor (Tchéky Karyo).
She makes a normal home life with a cute shop assistant (Jean-Hugues Anglade) while carrying out hits for the deep state. The initial premise is infallible and led to many remakes and spinoffs. It has also been unofficially ripped off, not least by writer-director Luc Besson who made a career from this setup. This is the superior version.
Still, it loses its way in the second act. The spy games are pure McGuffin and eventually the story arc reroutes into black comedy when Jean Reno appears in a cameo as a government 'cleaner' who tidies away the mess left behind by the spooks. There's an odd score which rotates supper club muzak, Mozart and industrial techno!
Parillaud and Besson generate some neo-noir sadness to obscure the issue of Nikita having shot a gendarme in the head... The visuals are cool and whenever the plot falters, it's rescued by the star's photogenic charisma. Okay, she's a babe with a gun but Parillaud gives a performance; and she's still the best killer-femme out there.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.