Luc Besson’s assassin thriller is gripping, implausible and more affecting than its glossy violence initially suggests. Anne Parillaud gives Nikita enough feeling to carry a script that does not give everyone else equal attention.
Luc Besson’s Nikita wants us to accept a punk’s conversion into a government assassin and still worry about the person doing the killing. It largely succeeds, thanks to Anne Parillaud, whose performance gives a lurid action thriller an emotional weight the writing seldom earns elsewhere. Besson writes and directs with a confidence that sometimes becomes impatience: once an image has made its point, he seems ready to move on. We recommend it for Parillaud and the tension, with reservations about the people surrounding her.
The opening robbery establishes the film’s appetite for violence, and Besson seldom gives the action much time to cool. The premise also supplies a nastier question than the film always wants to consider: what happens when somebody’s capacity for violence becomes useful to the government? Besson is more interested in Nikita’s transformation and romantic entanglements than in pursuing that question. That choice keeps the film moving, though it makes the organisation employing her feel conveniently vague.
Parillaud makes Nikita considerably more convincing than the story around her. She gives the character a volatility that makes even apparent competence unsettling, so the transformation never feels as simple as the premise suggests. We were tense during her initiation mission because Parillaud makes the effort of staying in control so palpable. The performance keeps Besson’s emphasis on glamour from tidying away her distress, and gives the action a person worth worrying about.
Thierry Arbogast’s cinematography makes the mixture of grit and gloss persuasive, allowing ugly behaviour to remain seductively watchable. The sleekness suits a story so concerned with changing how its heroine appears to the world. Dan Weil’s production design supplies the same mixture of roughness and polish, helping the crime and espionage passages feel part of the same film. We occasionally need more evidence that somebody lives in these settings, rather than simply turning up to look right in them.
Olivier Mauffroy’s editing is more convincing at sustaining an action sequence than at making the whole film cohere. The shifts into romance and quirky comedy give Parillaud welcome room, yet Besson does not always make those changes feel earned. Éric Serra’s score supplies momentum, helping the thriller recover its urgency when the plotting threatens to distract us. Across 117 minutes, the weakness is the way the different kinds of film have been joined, with changes of pace that can feel imposed on the characters.
Tchéky Karyo’s Bob and Jean-Hugues Anglade’s Marco give the romantic triangle enough personality to keep it from feeling like an interruption. Both actors have the charisma to hold their own beside Parillaud, and the romantic comedy allows an ease that the thriller otherwise discourages. Besson’s writing still leaves too much of their character to the performers. Too many supporting parts depend on actors suggesting the lives the script has omitted, which limits how much these relationships can move us.
The familiar action-thriller bargain is that we accept improbable behaviour in exchange for excitement, and Nikita pays its share. Its trouble comes when Besson asks the romance to bear more weight than his character writing allows. Even then, Parillaud remains a compelling reason to stay with it. Choose it for her, and expect to do a little forgiving whenever the plot takes charge.
