http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100263/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3
This is the French-Italian version from 1990, with Anne Parillaud in the lead. It was known as "La Femme Nikita" in American theaters. I didn't see it when it was shown in theaters, and just happened to record it late last week. I was blown away.
I am a sucker for "shadowy government organization" movies. There always seems to be an abandoned warehouse, filled with people who are focused on their jobs. Everyone has a different responsibility, but each is at the top of his or her career field. There is a unified goal (no matter how nefarious), and you never see that one office wacko who distracts everyone or the whiner who's either too hot/cold/hungry/needy. Those movies make working for such organizations almost attractive (once you disregard the evil they do).
Parillaud stars as a drug-addled waif who'd fallen in with a bunch of knucklehead teens. The movie opens with this pack of teens robbing a drug store late at night. The police show up, guns are fired, and our heroine ends up in the clutches of that afore-mentioned shadowy government organization. They make her "an offer she can't refuse". Eventually, after some resistance, she capitulates.
She takes to the training and shows great aptitude in her line of work. Along the way, she finds love. Jean-Hugues Anglade does great work as her beau: supportive, loving and a lot more shrewd than she originally thought.
In the midst of romance, work calls. Her handler, Bob (Tcheky Karyo) gives her a complicated job with the responsibility of picking her team. The job goes sideways, and a "cleaner" (Jean Reno) comes in and makes things even more complicated.
This is such a stylish movie. Paris is beautiful. Venice is vibrant, all bright colors and brilliant sunshine. The dialogue is sparse, but the pictures tell the story quite well. For the handful of folk who a) love foreign film and b) haven't seen this, check it out. Strangely enough, it works in parts as a date movie in addition to the action sequences.
Yeah, I liked this movie, a lot.
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