Customer Reviews

The Assassin

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Yes, La Femme Nikita is the real classic. But after repeated viewings on cable, this movie sneaks up on you. For all of its commercial hype and fake glamour, there are guilty pleasures throughout, not the least of which is the emotional core of the relationship between Bridget Fonda and Gabriel Byrne. Dermot Mulroney is also winning in his underwritten role. The wild premise survives the remake, because it is just so compelling and dramatic, and Anne Bancroft steals every scene she appears in. Give it a try, on its own terms.

Bridget Fonda is outstanding in this role. Good mix of tense action and romance. I have recommended it to several friends and they all love it too. It's even better the 2nd time you watch it. It doesn't get stale.
I also "love Nina".

Although lacking in some respects compared to the French original (you end up hoping that Bridget as assassin will pulverize her whimpering boyfriend with one of those big, big machine guns), Bridget Fonda as the star and Nina Simone with the soulful soundtrack give this movie the edge over La femme Nikita in at least two important departments. Bridget's performance here amazes me every time I see it--simultaneously believable as a feverishly trained assassin and a tragic hero so cute you just want to reach out and pinch her cheeks. But the highest marks go to the soundtrack. The writers of the adaptation wove in Nina Simone as a motif throughout the movie, well-complemented by 5 Nina songs, including "Feeling Good" and a cover of "Here Comes the Sun" tracked to the "relationship" scenes that /ALMOST/ make you forget how much you'd like Bridget to terminate her relationship with extreme prejudice..... Provides soulful reflection absent from the French original, and worth watching more than a few times for that reason alone. Pretentious naysayers say this remake has gone through the Hollywood ringer, but it's an A+ action-flick-plus-morality-tale spun before Quentin Tarantino made it socially acceptable for PBS-watchers to admit they like 'em. Give it a chance.

*** BLU RAY 2009 REVIEW ***

If ever a disc was a textbook example of how NOT to present BLU RAY, then "Point Of No Return" (called "The Assassin" in Europe) is it.

The print is awful almost the whole way through. There's blocking everywhere, blurriness and clearly no attempt to restore the film. Depressingly this release on BLU RAY only accentuates how badly filmed it was in the first place - in short its worse on this format than it was on DVD. It's not as bad as "The French Connection" or "2010" on BLU RAY (see reviews), but it's close. There are no extras either. Personally, I've always liked the movie, but I wanted a better copy of it - and this is NOT it.

This shoddy release only reconfirms the worst fears of movie fans - film companies are throwing any amount of crap at the BLU RAY wall at the moment to bolster up the sales numbers - and it's being done without any care being given to the release.

Even if you're a lover of the movie, hire it first before you buy - 20 minutes in and you'll be too disappointed to reach for the credit card...

"The Assassin/Point of No Return" on BLU RAY is a very real reason as to why Amazon reviews exist.

One to avoid I'm afraid.

I think Bridget Fonda does a really good job in this remake of the French movie, "La Femme Nikita". She's very believable in the action scenes and Gabriel Byrne & Harvey Keitel are always great in any movie. I loved seeing Anne Bancroft - she was, as always, superb! The best thing about this movie for me was introducing me to Nina Simone! I had never heard of her before, but when I heard her music (Bridget's character listened to her on her headphones) I had to hear more - I just love Nina's music! Some say the American remakes of foreign films never live up to the original, but I believe this one's worth watching - especially if you've thought women can't handle the tough jobs as well as men.

Like everyone else said, yes, it is no Nikita (French film). But, it is a pretty darn good movie. I was first introduced to the entire Nikita world through this movie and I loved it then and love it now. Bridget Fonda is excellent as the American Nikita (aka Maggie); she is a bit stronger and less confused than the French one and also uniquely different. Although American Nikita does not have that mysterious, interestingly vulnerable but intensely strong quality as the French Nikita, this film manages to pack a great heroine (of sorts, she is an assassin after all) with a great action movie and makes it one good film. Fonda is just great at playing the ex-druggie - now hitwoman Maggie, she is mesmerizing and phenomenal. An excellent Nikita. So, just watch both, and then watch the series, cause it just gets better.

I liked this movie. Fonda does a good job of portraying the drug addict/murderer, Nikita, who is sentenced to death for killing a police officer. She is 'saved' from her death sentence at the last minute by an ultra-covert government agency that allows her to live if she agrees to become an assassin/agent for the agency. To be useful to the agency, Nikita has to be 'civilized' so that she can pass as a normal person in society. She spends a year at the agency's camp, learning how to be a 'lady' and also learning the skills of an assassin. When Fonda's character is finally released into the real world, she meets a man and falls in love with him. Fonda's character IS transformed (by the agency and by love) -- but in the process of becoming 'civilized', she develops a conscience and finds herself less and less able to do the nasty work that the agency demands of her.
I think that all of the actors do a credible job in this film. Gabriel Byrne, as Fonda's control agent, is a perfect combination of cruelty and kindness. Fonda is great -- her character has to have an 'edge' but at the same time, she has to show the growing vulnerability of the 'civilized' Nikita. She makes the character believeable.
And as another reviewer said, the Nina Simone soundtrack adds alot to this film.
In conclusion, you will be entertained by this movie. And by the end, despite the main character's despicable behavior at the opening of the story, you are rooting for her and hoping that she will find a way to escape the agency and to live a normal life.
Watch this movie -- you won't regret it!

Well, some of the reviewers of this picture have said the original was better, but I disagree. This is just a fun, fast, exciting picture, with a terrific perfor- mance by Bridget Fonda and an even better script than the original.

Also, the use of Nina Simone's music puts this picture miles ahead of the first one--it makes the music an equivalent of Fonda's soul--the suffering and passion we hear in Nina Simone's music is what's going on in Bridget Fonda's heart. It's a dynamite movie. You will be damned happy you watched it.

Fun treatment of the French Noir Moderne classic _La Femme Nikita_, without any pretensions of grandeur. This film clearly needs some fine-print in the credits stating "we only did it for the money," but is a much more light-hearted & trendy take on the darker & more brooding French original. They're both excellent films, but PoNR being a better "movie & a pizza" choice while the original is perhaps better reserved for the serious film buffs out there. There's whole fan sites dedicated to this movie, largely due to Bridget Fonda's excellent work in injecting life back into what was essentially a story that had been "sanitized for American audiences" by an idiot-run big-budget Hollywood movie machine. Oh well, you can rarely go wrong underestimating the standards of the American public, but they almost did so when dumbing-down LFN. Fortunately, the actors & director on PoNR did a great job & by giving everything they had, brought an otherwise eviscerated cinematic story back to life. Kudos!

Maggie (Bridget Fonda) is a drug-addicted street punk who is hurting. Maggie and her friends try to solve their problems by robbing a pharmacy. Maggie commits murder during the robbery -- she is convicted, imprisoned and executed by lethal injection. Maggie awakens in an obscure Federal facility, learns that her father attended her burial, and learns that she has a choice -- Maggie can become a (disposable) Federal agent/assassin, or die. Maggie submits and is trained in weaponry, hand-to-hand combat and table manners. Maggie survives her training and becomes a Federal agent/assassin, but Maggie's missions tear her life apart ... Maggie again seeks sanctuary.

"Point Of No Return" is an American version (almost a copy) of French director Luc Besson's film "La Femme Nikita". Bridget Fonda is the best aspect of "Point Of No Return" -- post-transformation Maggie is a very elegant young American woman and Bridget Fonda plays the part well. But French director Luc Besson's film "La Femme Nikita" is superior to "Point Of No Return" -- director John Badham did *not* effectively utilize the Venice California setting. "Point Of No Return", in turn, is superior to the television series "La Femme Nikita", whose entire cast became increasingly mechanical (demoralized?) as the television series progressed.

The Armed Forces labor to instill esprit de corps and comradeship among their members -- 'We are strongest as a team and nobody gets left behind.' The two films and the television series discussed here share ***a common weakness***: Can a threatening organization expect quality performance from its agents? Continuous internal threats weaken agents' morale. And when trouble strikes, threatened agents cannot run to the threatening organization -- why should they fight, and where should they seek sanctuary?