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Budget. 39 million F. (€ 5.6 million) La Femme Nikita, [a] also called Nikita in France, is a 1990 French-language action thriller film written and directed by Luc Besson. The film stars Anne Parillaud as the title character, a criminal who is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering policemen during an armed pharmacy robbery.
La Femme Nikita: Directed by Luc Besson. With Anne Parillaud, Marc Duret, Patrick Fontana, Alain Lathière. Convicted felon Nikita isn't going to jail; she's given a new identity and trained, stylishly, as a top secret spy/assassin.
- (77K)
- Action, Crime, Drama
- Luc Besson
- 1991-04
A beautiful felon, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a policeman, is given a second chance – as a secret political assassin controlled by the government.
La Femme Nikita (TV Series 1997–2001) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.
- Overview
- Plot
- Cast
- Production
- Release
- Reception
- References
,Template:Efn also called Nikita in France, is a 1990 French-language action thriller film written and directed by Luc Besson. The film stars Anne Parillaud as the title character, a teen criminal who is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering policemen during an armed pharmacy robbery. Her government handlers fake her death and recruit her as a professional assassin. After intense training, she starts a career as a killer, where she struggles to balance her work with her personal life. She shows talent at this and her career progresses until a mission in an embassy goes awry.
was commercially successful, but received mixed reviews from critics. It was remade as Black Cat (1991) in Hong Kong, Point of No Return (1993) in Hollywood, and in Bollywood as Kartoos (1999). Two English-language television series were produced based on the film, La Femme Nikita (1997–2001) and Nikita (2010–2013).
Nikita is a nihilistic teenage junkie who commits her life to anarchy, drugs and violence. One night, she participates in the robbery of a pharmacy owned by a friend's parents. The robbery erupts into a gunfight with local police, and her accomplices are killed. Suffering severe withdrawal symptoms, she murders a police officer. Nikita is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder, and is sentenced to life in prison.
In prison, government officials fake her death, making it appear that she has committed suicide, and remove her from prison. She awakens in a nondescript room, where a well-dressed, hard-looking man named Bob tells her that, although officially dead and buried, she is in the custody of a shadowy government agency known as "the Centre" (possibly part of the DGSE). She is given the choice of becoming an assassin, or of occupying "row 8, plot 30", her fake grave. After some resistance, she chooses the former and gradually proves to be a talented killer. She is taught computer skills, martial arts, and firearms. One of her trainers, Amande, transforms her from a degenerate drug addict to a beautiful femme fatale. Amande implies that she also was rescued and trained by the Centre.
Nikita's initial mission, killing a foreign diplomat in a crowded restaurant and escaping from his well-armed bodyguards to the Centre, doubles as the final test in her training. She graduates and begins life as a sleeper agent in Paris (under the name Marie). After meeting Marco in a supermarket, the two develop an intimate relationship, although he knows nothing of her real work. Marco is curious about her past and why she has no family or other friends. Nikita invites Bob to dinner as "Uncle Bob". He tells stories about "Marie"'s imaginary childhood and give the couple tickets for a trip to Venice, purportedly as an engagement gift.
Nikita and Marco go on the trip. As they prepare to make love after arrival, the phone rings. She thinks it's the room service they just ordered, but it is instructions for her next job. Her room is perfectly located for her to shoot the target. She goes to the bathroom, supposedly to take a bath, and as she prepares the rifle, Marco tries to talk to her through the door. The instructions about her target take longer than expected and she can't answer him. She finally shoots her target but barely conceals the rifle before Marco walks in, against her wishes. Nikita is distraught that her work has caused them difficulties.
Still, her career as an assassin goes well until a document-theft mission in an embassy goes awry. Back in Paris, the Centre sends in Victor "The Cleaner", a ruthless operative, to salvage the mission and destroy all the evidence of the foul-up. When another operative is killed by Victor, Nikita is assigned to take his place. They nearly complete the mission before it goes bad. Victor takes on a bunch of guards before being fatally wounded, but drives Nikita to safety before succumbing to his wounds.
Marco reveals that he has discovered Nikita's secret life, and, concerned over how her activities are affecting her psychologically, persuades her to disappear. Upon discovering that she abandoned the Centre, Bob goes to their apartment and meets with Marco. When Bob says that Nikita is at risk because she still has the documents taken from the embassy, Marco hands them over. The two men agree that they will both miss Nikita.
•Anne Parillaud as Nikita
•Marc Duret as Rico
•Jean-Hugues Anglade as Marco
•Tchéky Karyo as Bob
•Jeanne Moreau as Amande
•Jean Reno as Victor "The Cleaner"
Based on the success of Le Grand Bleu, Gaumont agreed to finance Nikita without having seen a script. Nikita cost 39 million francs to make, and was a co-production between Besson's company Les Films du Loup, Gaumont, and Cecchi Gori Group Tiger Cinematographica.Stub
premiered in Paris at the Grand Rex on 21 February 1990.Stub On its first week in Paris, the film had 113,900 spectators.Stub By the year 2000, the film had 828,867 spectators in Paris.Stub
Following the premiere, the film was distributed to 15 towns in France, with Besson to promote it and have discussions with audiences after the screenings.Stub Other cast and crew members on the tour included Éric Serra, Anne Parillaud, Jean-Hugues Anglade and occasionally Tchéky Karyo.Stub The film had 3,787,845 spectators in France by 2000.Stub It was the fourth highest-grossing film in France for 1990, but was not as popular as Besson's previous film The Big Blue (1988).Stub
After Nikita's release in France, it was released in over 95 countries.Stub Gaumont handled the sales of distribution rights separately; distribution rights were sold to Columbia Pictures and the remake rights were sold to Warner Bros.Stub Nikita was shown in Montreal, Canada in 1990. The film was very popular in Montreal, where distributor Didier Farre noted that the film was beaten only by Bird on a Wire and Back to the Future Part III in June 1990. In Britain, the film became the highest weekly box office ever for a French film, and it was also popular in the box office in Italy and Japan.
It was released in the United States in 1991.Stub The film had a six-month theatrical run in the United States where it reached an audience of 1.15 million.Stub By the end of the year, the film was the third highest-grossing French film production in the United States.Stub Besson thought that the film was inappropriately promoted in the United States, saying that "Nikita is an action film but was released in American art houses. The Big Blue has the same problem, released in the United States as an intellectual work, and attracting the wrong audience."
In France, the popular press reception to the film was mixed.Stub Monthly film journals were more favourable, while the more serious journals were predominantly negative.Stub Reviews from Le Nouvel Observateur, Libération, Le Figaro and Le Journal du Dimanche gave the film positive reviews, where they all appreciated Besson's film noir styled film and were surprised at Parillaud's acting in a demanding role.Stub In contrast, the film was dismissed in reviews from L'Humanité, L'événement du jeudi, Le Monde, Le Parisien, and La Croix, who found the film resembled a commercial advertisement visually and psychologically had the depth of a comic strip.Stub
Speaking of the film's critical reception in France, Besson noted he would not talk to the press, saying that he would want to "count on them to help me, to help me evaluate my own work". He said that "critics should be looking towards the future, but in France, all they want to talk about is the past."
Besson further said:
Paris critic Marc Esposito of Studio responded to Besson's statements, describing Besson as someone who "thinks he's a nice guy, and everyone around him is evil. We are all guilty of not adoring Luc Besson."
1.Nikita (18). British Board of Film Classification (6 July 1990).
2.as per the original French version/English subtitles
3.Nikita (1989) Luc Besson (in fr). Bifi.fr.
4.Griffin, John. "Despite Big Box Office, Critics Stay Cool to Besson's Films", 8 June 1990, p. D3.
5.Dutka, Elaine (27 March 1991). The 'Fairy Tale' Luck of Director Luc Besson : Movies: His latest film, 'La Femme Nikita,' the story of a crazed addict transformed into a ruthless undercover agent, is a surprise hit.. Los Angeles Times.
6.Waxman, Sharon. "'La Femme Nikita's' Misunderstood Director: Luc Besson, Like a Fish out of Water", 14 April 1991, p. G1.
La Femme Nikita. GOLDEN GLOBE® nominee. From celebrated French director Luc Besson comes this "slick, stylish and tremendously entertaining" ( The New York Times ) thriller about a cop-killing junkie (Anne Parillaud) turned lethally dangerous assassin. IMDb 7.3 1 h 57 min 1991 X-Ray R.
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Apr 1, 1991 · Play Trailer. She murders. So she can live. Overview. A beautiful felon, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a policeman, is given a second chance – as a secret political assassin controlled by the government. Luc Besson. Director, Writer. Full Cast & Crew. Social. Reviews. Discussions 5. A review by talisencrw. 90.
