Movie Review: La Femme Nikita

A movie that I have been wanting to see for almost 20 years now was La Femme Nikita.

And it was worth the wait. A recent article in Entertainment Weekly about the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo compared some film heroines to Lisbeth Salander. "She's fierce, shrewd vulnerable-and part of a long, proud, badass tradition." Wow! That could have been taken from a comic book. Some of the characters to Lisbeth were Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner, Sissy Spacek in Carrie (?), Saorise Ronan in Hannah, and Anne Parillaud in La Femme Nikita. Luc Besson, who wrote and directed this movie was also married at one time to Anne Parillaud. He also wrote and directed "Leon, the Professional" and "The Fifth Element". You can see the strong female character in all three of these films. In Wikipedia, it is said he was part of the "Cinema du look" movement. The movie was made in 1990. I think at times it could look dated, but I think visually the film's style is fantastic. This look here looks as if the walls were painted by Basquiat.

The film had Tarantino elements, or since it came first, maybe vise versa. It's style, energy, keeps the pace of the film moving and the writing is perfect.