Little Nikita (1988) Columbia/Drama-Thriller RT: 98 minutes Rated PG (violence, language, brief nudity and sexual content) Director: Richard Benjamin Screenplay: Bo Goldman and John Hill Music: Marvin Hamlisch Cinematography: Laszlo Kovacs Release date: March 18, 1988 (US) Cast: Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Richard Jenkins, Caroline Kava, Richard Bradford, Richard Lynch, Loretta Devine, Lucy Deakins, Jerry Hardin, Albert Fortell, Robb Madrid, Ronald Guttman, Jacob Vargas, Roberto Jimenez, Chez Lister. Box Office: $1.7M (US)
Rating: * ½
How’s this for a premise? An all-American teen boy is shocked to learn his parents are actually Russian sleeper agents. Such is the premise of Little Nikita, a drama-thriller that could only have been made in the Cold War 80s when Russia was still the USSR and our most feared enemy. It’s not a bad idea for a movie if it had the slightest clue how to go about being the kind of movie it wants to be. It wants to be a dramatic thriller about a kid uncovering his parents’ past and how it affects him. It also wants to be a straight-up thriller about the aforementioned sleeper agents being reactivated against their will to deal with a rogue spy on a killing spree. It throws into the mix an FBI agent with a past connection to one of the principal figures in the case. Put together, Little Nikita adds up to a total far less than the sum of its parts.
After a decade-long break from acting, Sidney Poitier starred in two movies in early ’88. He plays an FBI agent in both. The first is the actioner Shoot to Kill opposite Tom Berenger. It’s great. The second is Little Nikita opposite River Phoenix. It’s not great although the idea must have looked great on paper. Pairing a vet like Poitier with a hot teen star like Phoenix gives the movie cross-generational appeal. Theoretically, it will attract adults and teens. That’s just a working theory, of course. The reality is audiences stayed away. People know a dud when they see an ad for one. It makes one wonder why Poitier came out of retirement only to appear in such a tepid spy thriller. If not for Shoot to Kill, he’d have been better off staying home and practicing his golf swing.
Jeff Grant (Phoenix, Stand by Me) is a normal 17YO in pretty much every way. He hangs out with his friends. He has a sweet girlfriend (Deakins, The Boy Who Could Fly). He works with his parents, Richard (Jenkins, There’s Something About Mary) and Elizabeth (Kava, Year of the Dragon), at their plant nursery. He has a suspended driver’s license because of his tendency to drive fast. He dreams of a career in the Air Force. It’s that last part that upends his life. While doing a routine background check on applicants, FBI guy Roy Parmenter (Poitier, In the Heat of the Night) finds something unusual. According to the computer, Jeff’s parents died in 1891. What gives?
Meanwhile, there’s this Soviet psycho code-named “Scuba” (Lynch, Invasion USA) going around killing all of the KGB undercovers in the US. It’s only a matter of time before he finds Richard and Elizabeth. The FBI sends their guys after Scuba. Roy wants to be involved because, in one of the movie’s many unbelievable coincidences, Scuba is the same creep that murdered his partner 20 years earlier. No dice. His boss orders him to continue his surveillance of Jeff and his family. The Soviets, in a bid to cover up their “secret” US operations, send their own guy, Konstantin (Bradford, The Untouchables), to catch Scuba. I don’t know what spy school he went to, but he was obviously absent the day they taught the art of blending in. The fedora, black overcoat and thick Russian accent leave no doubt as to his profession. Who else dresses this way outside a bad spy movie?
Little Nikita, directed by Richard Benjamin (My Favorite Year), is one of those movies where the inevitable always happens. Point in case, Roy moves into the house across the street from Jeff’s family and proceeds to make friends with them only Jeff already knows (or at least suspects) he’s FBI. Roy pops up in so many unexpected places; he’s either law enforcement or a stalker. If there’s even a slim chance that the latter is true, why on earth would Jeff agree to take a ride with Roy in his car? Where’s his damn common sense? Is this the kind of guy who should be flying planes?
In another crazy coincidence that could only be the brainchild of paid screenwriters, the climax has all of the principal characters boarding the same car on a trolley. Isn’t it more likely that at least one of them would have to pass through a few cars before finding the others? How can there be this many plot holes in one movie? It boggles the mind.
The most idiotic thing about Little Nikita is its utter lack of knowledge when it comes to how computers work. I’m referring to the scene where Roy finds the discrepancy on Jeff’s parents. When he enters their names, the words “DOES NOT COMPUTE” flash on the screen. Really? Isn’t it possible there are other people named Richard and Elizabeth Grant out there? I’d say it’s more than possible; it’s definitely probable. These names aren’t exactly uncommon. There should be a long list for Roy to go over. It’d be a different story if the names were Richard and Elizabeth Chmielewski.
Plot holes aside, Little Nikita simply isn’t that good a movie. It’s not all that thrilling, not even when Konstantin takes Jeff (aka “Nikita”, his given Russian name) hostage as a way of forcing Richard/Mikhail and Elizabeth/Elisabeth back into service. It doesn’t work as drama either. This blame for this falls mainly on Phoenix who turns in a rare bad performance here. His acting is too stilted even when he overacts. He’s not convincing. He plays a similar role- a kid upon whom the sins of his parents rest- to much greater effect in Sidney Lumet’s underrated drama Running on Empty (it came out later the same year). As much as I hate to say it, Poitier is a disappointment too. He doesn’t even try; he all but phones it in.
The only enjoyable aspect of Little Nikita is Lynch. He always plays a great villain. I wouldn’t say he’s great here, but he’s the best thing this movie has going for it. I’m not sure why the studio hired Benjamin to direct. He’s clearly way out of his comfort zone in the thriller genre. It’s slow-paced and predictable. The script by Bo Goldman and John Hill has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. There’s little in the way of character development. The story is never even remotely plausible. The whole thing appears to be put together with indifference. As a result, it’s impossible to care about the story or the characters. That being the case, there’s really no reason to see Little Nikita. To coin a popular phrase from its time, just say nyet.
