Admittedly this is a slick and stylish film, but in between the high spots, I found it to be long on exposition and dare I say it, almost boring. What was never developed well enough for me was the idea that this punk teenager/cop killer was deemed suitable to undergo an intensive rebirth as a government assassin. What elusive ingredient was part of Nikita's (Anne Parillaud) makeup that justified agent Bob (Tcheky Karyo) to go out on a limb to mentor her training? That whole part of the story was a disconnect for me, and kept rearing it's ugly head every time Marie/Josephine went into a sob over one thing or another. I offer that bathtub scene with the co-assassin who panicked to support my argument. I thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown right there. Well this one's been around a long time now, twenty years, and I finally got around to seeing it based on it's reputation, but I can't say that I was enthralled the way some of it's bigger fans on this board were. For some perspective, I went back and took a look at my review for that other Luc Besson genre film "Leon: The Professional", but that only confirmed my initial reaction here. The two hours can be spent better elsewhere.
Review of La Femme Nikita
