{"id":6777,"date":"2024-10-25T11:05:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6777"},"modified":"2024-10-25T11:05:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:05:43","slug":"little-nikita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/little-nikita\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Nikita"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Little Nikita <\/strong>(1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language, brief nudity and sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Richard Benjamin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Bo Goldman and John Hill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marvin Hamlisch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Laszlo Kovacs\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 18, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $1.7M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: * \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0How\u2019s 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<\/strong>, 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\u2019s 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\u2019 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<\/strong> adds up to a total far less than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0After a decade-long break from acting, Sidney Poitier starred in two movies in early \u201988. He plays an FBI agent in both. The first is the actioner Shoot to Kill opposite Tom Berenger. It\u2019s great. The second is Little Nikita<\/strong> opposite River Phoenix. It\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019d have been better off staying home and practicing his golf swing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jeff 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\u2019s Something About Mary) and Elizabeth (Kava, Year of the Dragon), at their plant nursery. He has a suspended driver\u2019s license because of his tendency to drive fast. He dreams of a career in the Air Force. It\u2019s 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\u2019s parents died in 1891. What gives?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, there\u2019s this Soviet psycho code-named \u201cScuba\u201d (Lynch, Invasion USA) going around killing all of the KGB undercovers in the US. It\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u201csecret\u201d US operations, send their own guy, Konstantin (Bradford, The Untouchables), to catch Scuba. I don\u2019t 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?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Little Nikita<\/strong>, 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\u2019s family and proceeds to make friends with them only Jeff already knows (or at least suspects) he\u2019s FBI. Roy pops up in so many unexpected places; he\u2019s either law enforcement or a stalker. If there\u2019s 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\u2019s his damn common sense? Is this the kind of guy who should be flying planes?<\/p>\n

\u00a0In 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The most idiotic thing about Little Nikita<\/strong> is its utter lack of knowledge when it comes to how computers work. I\u2019m referring to the scene where Roy finds the discrepancy on Jeff\u2019s parents. When he enters their names, the words \u201cDOES NOT COMPUTE\u201d flash on the screen. Really? Isn\u2019t it possible there are other people named Richard and Elizabeth Grant out there? I\u2019d say it\u2019s more than possible; it\u2019s definitely probable<\/em>. These names aren\u2019t exactly uncommon. There should be a long list for Roy to go over. It\u2019d be a different story if the names were Richard and Elizabeth Chmielewski.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Plot holes aside, Little Nikita<\/strong> simply isn\u2019t that good a movie. It\u2019s not all that thrilling, not even when Konstantin takes Jeff (aka \u201cNikita\u201d, his given Russian name) hostage as a way of forcing Richard\/Mikhail and Elizabeth\/Elisabeth back into service. It doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s not convincing. He plays a similar role- a kid upon whom the sins of his parents rest- to much greater effect in Sidney Lumet\u2019s 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\u2019t even try; he all but phones it in.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only enjoyable aspect of Little Nikita<\/strong> is Lynch. He always plays a great villain. I wouldn\u2019t say he\u2019s great here, but he\u2019s the best thing this movie has going for it. I\u2019m not sure why the studio hired Benjamin to direct. He\u2019s clearly way out of his comfort zone in the thriller genre. It\u2019s slow-paced and predictable. The script by Bo Goldman and John Hill has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. There\u2019s 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\u2019s impossible to care about the story or the characters. That being the case, there\u2019s really no reason to see Little Nikita<\/strong>. To coin a popular phrase from its time, just say nyet<\/em>.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Little Nikita (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language, brief nudity and sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Richard Benjamin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Bo Goldman and John Hill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marvin Hamlisch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Laszlo Kovacs\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 18, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Richard Jenkins, Caroline Kava, Richard Bradford, Richard Lynch, Loretta Devine, Lucy Deakins, Jerry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suspense-thrillers","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Little-Nikita-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6777"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7181,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777\/revisions\/7181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}