La Femme Nikita

Nikita Taylor (Anne Parillaud) is a heroin addict who participates in robbing the pharmacy of the parents of a fellow junkie. The theft goes wrong and escalates into a gunfight with the police and the deaths of all her partners. After all has subsided, a very inebriated Nikita shoots a policeman. She is arrested and then convicted of murder and imprisoned for life. In prison, she is drugged to simulate a death sentence and then awakens in a nearly featureless room. A man enters and reveals that, although officially dead and buried after suicide by overdose, she is in the custody of the French intelligence agency. She is given two options: work as their assassin or "Row 8, place 30" (location of her fake grave: be killed and buried for real.) She selects the former and proves to be a gifted assassin.

She completes her first mission and begins her life as a sleeper agent in Paris where she meets a man who eventually becomes her boyfriend. The relationship becomes strong without him ever knowing about her eccentric lifestyle. Her assassin's career continues well, until a mission goes amiss, resulting in her needing the assistance of 'Victor: The Cleaner' (Jean Reno) in destroying any proof of the mission. Victor is killed and Nikita soon after abandons her boyfriend and the agency.



I think the movie is really about sense of self. Nikita spends all this time doing the most brutal thing one can do to another human being and is forced to live another life in which she is just ordinary and seemingly lovely. The view is aware of her Jekyll and Hyde scenario and witnesses how well she manages to hide one and unveil the other. When Victor becomes involved however, she appears to have reached her breaking point and loses her unruffled demeanor in a matter of minutes. She is finally able to live her life as she would like to; without puppet strings.

I thought the movie was very good. However, I think it could have been shortened. The dialogue was very good and I liked the poetry that was hidden in the plainest discourse between characters. Especially from the handler. It was definitely better than the American version and I’m not just saying that because the original > remake but because I honestly think the French did a nicer job overall: acting, cinematography, content and music.