The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I can't recall whether I last saw this in the cinema or on video but I do recall liking it a lot and even had a poster on my wall. Coming to it again almost 30 years later I am not quite as impressed. It stuck me as overlong and I found it a bit uneven. There were scenes I was supposed to take seriously and then there were ridiculous sequences with cars ploughing through walls and fight-outs in posh restaurant kitchens with automatic weapons. I should have been on a warning with the opening sequence when there is a super hero comic book response by the police to a potential chemist shop robbery. Then, of course, during the period between viewings I have seen television adaptations. The fabulous French Canadian version, La Femme Nikita with the stunning Peta Wilson and the more recent and more similar to this in tone, US Nikita with Maggie Q. The French Canadian version very much takes the theme set out here but builds on it imaginatively and believably. It has to be said that even if this original film does now disappoint it was a great concept and Luc lesson can take much of the credit for that.

When the film opens, Nikita is a frail young woman who's literally dragged to a robbery, everyone is excited, but she seems absent, hanging on the miserable hope to get her fix. When everything goes wrong (and that's an understatement) she is sitting on the ground, passively watching cops and punks kill and being killed. At that point, she seems like a victim but then she cold-bloodily shoots a cop who actually cared for her, then even for us, she's beyond any kind of redemption. Things go rather quickly: she's arrested, put on trial and sentenced for perpetuity.But there's something in Anne Parillaud's performance (that won the French Oscar for Best Actress, the only award the film received) that turns Nikita into a genuinely enigmatic personality, we don't like her, there's not much question that she's a bad woman, but she's also a weird, infantile, grotesque, rude and excessively unpredictable person. The film doesn't suggest that she's victim of herself, but simply that there's a sort of vacuum in her life, her education or her mind that let criminal impulses fill it, she's bad but in an accidental sort of way. The film then ventures in "realistic fantasy" when she's put to sleep by injection and wakes up in a secret government organization specialized in recruiting new profiles for assignments to kill. What did they see in Nikita, we never know but the man in charge of her 'reeducation' is Bob, played by the great Tcheky Karyo and he's convinced that the girl has potential.Luc Besson knows his craft, he expected that the whole first act would consist on showing the evolution of Nikita from that sorry-excuse-for-a-woman to a professional female killer, meaning in subtext, that she'll have to become a woman as well, it's a rebirth, a metamorphosis she'll owe to her new job, and what an irony that killing people will be the counterpart to being alive. This paradox will shape the second personality of Nikita, who'll never stop to be a tortured woman but in a different way, she's just starting to enjoy life but the catch of her redemption consists on cold-blooded murders. But Besson knows our disbelief won't be suspended for long if the change isn't believable, we could believe his Leon was such a pro because we didn't see his back-story or his training, for Nikita, the film will have to become a character-study, and I guess this is why Besson started with an action sequence and some unexpected outburst during the training part.Nikita's unpredictability is the key to her appeal as an original character, until we know it's time to get over it, but it allows Besson to find the right balance between action and drama, and some moments like the interactions with Jeanne Moreau, teaching her how to smile, how to be a woman, is one of these emotional reliefs the story asks for. And it turns out that, because her life is still at stakes, because she's supposed to be dead and she's easily disposable, she becomes a real woman, feminine, pretty and gentle. And then, something interesting happens, there's a transfer from Nikita to the script in the unpredictability department, Nikita remains the same woman, vulnerable and melancholic and the excitement, the thrills come from Besson's hard-edged script. Yes, he is an expert of cinema "du look" as they say in France, and yes, he was one of these new talents with vision but he doesn't get enough credit for his screen writing. Her relationship with Pygmalion Bob is one of the aspects that elevate the film.I will not reveal all the film but there's just one scene that works on a perfect tertiary tempo, and it's just fascinating. Nikita is invited to a restaurant with Bob to celebrate her 'graduation', her gift is wrapped in a box, she opens it and her smile vanishes: it's a gun. She must kill someone. First surprise. She has three minutes to do it after Bob leaves, no time to think. Second surprise. She's suppose to get off from a little window located in men's toilets, when she gets there, it's walled. Third surprise. Each time, we see nothing coming, we're literally put in her high-heel shoes and try to figure out how she'll get from that situation. The action sequences that go after are spectacular but traditional, yet it works because Besson makes his action sequences as a dressing, not as a meal, the film is a terrific thriller because of the set-ups rather than the outcomes, the anticipation rather than the action especially since Nikita isn't exactly the Leon-professional type, the film almost works on a Hitchcockian level.And it could have worked alone with Nikita, Bob and the missions, but Besson adds a third dimension, a romance. Nikita falls in love with a gentle and smiling cashier played by Jean-Hugues Anglade, he's obviously not expecting such a beauty to approach him, but she does. Maybe because she's like him, she feels like an outcast, and she could tell he would love her, the organization reeducated her, but there was still a little void in her heart, and I just love how the film never tries to create artificial obstacles in their love, it's pure, passionate love, and it will overlap with the killing missions in the most creative and again, unexpected ways. That's exactly what I love about the film, it provides unexpected moments of thrills and emotions without being too original, it's a good thriller, romance and character-study.And trust Besson to always find a way to surprise you, every mission is memorable in a climactic or anti-climactic way, and just when it gets too routinely, he introduces one of this great supporting characters, Victor the Cleaner, played by Jean Reno, perhaps foreshadowing his performance as Léon. Victor is here for ten minutes but he makes the show but that's another story.

I watched this film when it first came out, and then watched it again and again analyzing it ad nauseum... to try and learn a thing or two. Yes, it is that good. I like a few other Luc Besson films, but this one is a notch or two above his other creations.Nikita is a story about a drug addicted woman who becomes a government agent, or rather - an assassin.That part of the story is presented really well, and provides more than enough excitement to support the entire film. But what makes this film so good is everything that happens below the surface: complex relationships, unfinished business, never knowing if she will do this or that... yet, none of it feels forced or contrived. It all makes perfect sense.I read some negative reviews here and was wondering if those people even watched this film: their questions almost feel like they should not be allowed in theaters alone. Carefully watching a film such as this one will go a long way toward enjoying it.Perhaps the only "problem" with La Femme Nikita is that it came out at the time when no one knew who Luc Besson was, and with minimal, if any, promotion armchair film-critics found it to be an easy target for unjustified negativity. Too many people are on a lookout for what seems like an easy target for their vitriol, and this film did not come with any big names attached, so they could not pass on the opportunity.The true greatness of this film is best illustrated by the fact that numerous TV shows and a remake or two were made soon after it came out. You know a film is good when other filmmakers are aching to make it again, and they fail to exceed its high standards.The only other real problem with this film may be its subtitles. Since I speak French, I simply listen, rather than read, but a few times that I took a look at subtitles, I was shocked that they were so far off - it felt almost like someone was trying to change the story with their subtitles! If memory serves me well, the original VHS actually had excellent translation as did the theatrical release; but DVD and Bluray suffer from bad English subtitles (maybe Bluray less so? Don't remember any more).All in all, action packed, brutally honest crime drama (yes, governments DO hire former criminals to be their assassins), with a heart. The single most important point of this film is not action but the main character's arc. Enjoy it and discover it yourself.This is one of the finest examples of what French cinema is capable of. Hollywood cannot even come close.

One of the better French films you'll see. Not that this says much, as most French movies are pretentious crap. Nikita, on the other hand, is far from that...A woman in a criminal gang is captured after killing a policeman during a botched robbery. She is sentenced to life in prison but while in prison she is approached by a government agent who intends to make her a secret agent. She reluctantly goes along with the idea...Interesting, engaging espionage drama with some great action scenes. Plot is good and the story follows well. The set up is also well done, and quite funny at times. Quite gritty too. Has all the traits of a good drama.So good, Hollywood remade Nikita as Point of No Return / The Assassin in 1993, with Bridget Fonda in the lead role. It was also made into a Canadian TV series, La Femme Nikita. The series lasted from 1997 to 2001 and starred Peta Wilson in the lead role.