Little Nikita (1988) * 1/2

Directed by:  Richard Benjamin

Starring:  Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Richard Jenkins, Caroline Kava, Richard Bradford, Richard Lynch

Little Nikita was released as the Cold War was beginning to lose steam.    There is a Soviet villain in this film, but also a Soviet who says, "Russians don't kill their children."    And we thought all Russians were soulless monsters.    Within three years, the USSR ceased to exist and Hollywood was looking for a new country that exports villains.

This film, directed by Richard Benjamin, stars Sidney Poitier as an FBI agent tracking a rogue Soviet agent named "Scuba" (Lynch), who wears sandals everywhere and knocks off Soviet sleeper agents.     Scuba demands money from the Soviets and in exchange will spare the remaining agents, while Poitier wants to capture Scuba for more personal reasons.     Enter Jeff Grant (Phoenix), a teen who applies to the Air Force Academy near San Diego and whose application raises a serious red flag with Poitier. 

Jeffrey lists his parents as "Richard and Elizabeth Grant" and the computer returns a message stating "deceased 1891".    Hmm, that's peculiar.    Not that the Grants seemingly died in 1891, but that the computer would think that there were no other Richard or Elizabeth Grants anywhere since.     I'll bet Poitier could've flipped open a phone book and found 20 Richard Grants and 20 Elizabeth Grants in just San Diego alone.   

Poitier (whose character's name is Roy Paramenter) discovers that Jeff's parents are really Soviet sleeper agents themselves.     For those unaware, sleeper agents are agents whose mission is to pose as Americans until they are contacted by their superiors to carry out an assignment.      In the case of the Grants, they had lived in America for twenty years and ran their own nursery.   Twenty years?    Their superior Karpov (Bradford) shouldn't have been too surprised that the Grants were less than willing to give up their happy life to help him kill Scuba.    After all, twenty years is an awfully long time to be on call.     Nights at the opera are much more favorable than chasing around a killer. 

Things get progressively sillier and we kinda sorta know the only person who stands to lose in this whole thing is Scuba, who has upset the FBI and the KGB in one fell swoop.      After chases and many scenes in which people are holding guns to other people's heads, the film ends happily except for Scuba.      There are many veteran character actors here who know how to put their head down and plow forward even when faced with an absurd plot.     The box-office focus was likely on Phoenix, who at the time was a rising teen film star.     He shows none of the poise and ability here like he did in Running On Empty, released later in 1988 and which garnered him his only Oscar nomination.   

And what's with the name Roy Paramenter?   Couldn't the screenwriters have at least come up with a less laborious name than that for Poitier's character?     And how did the filmmakers shoehorn in Poitier's affair with one of Jeffrey's teachers?     Those scenes play like they were dropped in from another movie.