La Femme Nikita
Madman
R4 DVD and Region B Blu
Ray
French
with English subtitles
Not
far into this film realised had seen it before as a U.S. film called The
Assassin. It starred Bridget Fonda in a not-very-convincing performance. The
memory nearly made me turn this film off, but I’m glad I didn’t. Quite simply,
Luc Besson’s original (it predates Assassin by three
years) is so much stronger and well played than the American copy.
Nikita
is a teenage junkie. In a botched robbery she shoots a policeman and is
sentenced to death. The Government has other uses for her, though, and she wakes
up in a training complex. She has a choice – train as an assassin or die again,
this time permanently. She is not by nature an obedient trainee and a number of
times she is in danger of being terminated, but under the guidance of her
tutor, Bob, she gradually becomes aware of what she could become with
discipline and training. Bob is more than a little in love with her and she
feels affection for him.
She
passes her first test exercise and is put on the active list. In between the
occasional assignment she manages to become friendly with a young checkout
operator, Marco, in
a local supermarket. He has dreams of becoming a boat builder. Affection turns
to love but he is still puzzled by her regular disappearances and lack of
family, friends or a past. One night he meets Bob who invents a sort of past
for Nikita, but is he really fooled?
Then
a job goes drastically wrong. What was supposed to be a quiet safecracking
exercise turns into an orgy of shooting, car crashes and bodies. The
organization will not stand for this and she is marked for death. Can Bob save
her?
If
the American version had unimpressive acting, the French original has it all –
convincing characters who are developed through the
story, a plot that is fast-paced but does not let the action overwhelm the
story, and first-class acting by all concerned. Anne Parillaud
as Nikita is just brilliant. Somehow the French version has a life to it that
is not overcome by high-tech gadgets or undue dwelling on the techniques of
assassination. The film has also been adapted into a Canadian TV series that
ran for four and a half seasons. Sometimes the original is best.
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