La Femme Nikita
Directed by Luc Besson
Starring Anne Parillaud with Jean Reno
1990
This is the original version, not the competent U.S. remake starring Bridget Fonda or the Candian TV series by the same name. (I've not seen the TV series).
Besson is the maestro of stylish european action films and this movie may well prove to be his biggest masterpiece.
Parillaud plays 'Nikita' a very drugged out survivor of a drug store robbery gone bad shootout where everyone else dies, including the police, one cop by her hand. After conviction she is given the opportunity by the French State to enter a training program for assassins. As one might expect the State does not necessarily have her best interests at heart, viewing her as an expendable 'asset'.
Jean Reno plays the 'cleaner', at the ultimate moment of Nikita's 'sobering' - will she survive this gunfight or not?
