La Femme Nikita - 1990

Before there was Lisbeth Salenger (a la the Stieg Larsson books) there was Nikita. She had all the fire that Lisbeth had. When I read the Stieg Larsson books this is who I imagined. See the French version (NIKITA) in English subtitles. You won't be disappointed. A thrill ride of a film.

Nikita (1990) is a French thriller film written and directed by Luc Besson; it was released in the US as La Femme Nikita. The film is about a young criminal who is recruited to work for French intelligence. Two television shows were later based on the film.

Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is a teenage junkie who participates in the robbery of a pharmacy owned by the parents of a fellow junkie. The robbery goes awry, erupting into a gunfight with local police, during which her cohorts are killed. Suffering severe withdrawal symptoms, she murders a policeman. Nikita is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder and is sentenced to death by lethal injection.

In prison, she is executed, but awakens in a nondescript room. A well-dressed but hard-looking Bob (Tchéky Karyo) enters and reveals that, although officially dead and buried after execution, she is in the custody of the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), the French intelligence agency. She is given a choice of becoming an assassin or actually occupying "row 7, plot 30"[4] (her fake grave). After some resistance, she chooses the former and proves to be a talented killer. One of her trainers, Amande (Jeanne Moreau), transforms her from a degenerate drug addict to a femme fatale; Amande was also rescued and trained by the DGSE.

Her initial mission, killing a diplomat in a crowded restaurant and escaping back to the Centre, is the film's highlight; she graduates and begins life as a sleeper agent in Paris with her boyfriend Marco (Jean-Hugues Anglade), a man she meets in a supermarket and who knows nothing of her real profession.

Her career as an assassin goes well until a document-theft in an embassy goes awry, requiring the ruthless Victor "The Cleaner" (Jean Reno) to destroy the mission's evidence and all corpses. Victor is wounded and dies; and Marco eventually discovers Nikita's secret life. Upon discovering that she abandoned the service, Bob meets with Marco, and they both discuss and decide what is best for Nikita.