Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Little Nikita Blu-ray Movie Review

"Spy on my parents? You gotta be kidding me!"

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson April 7, 2017

After more than a decade away from acting, Sidney Poitier decided to return to the silver screen with a co-starring role in Richard Benjamin's Little Nikita (1988). Press interviews with Poitier at the time indicate that the Oscar winner had read around 200 scripts in the intervening years and couldn't find anything that genuinely piqued his interest. However, as he continued reading through a draft of Little Nikita, he got more and more enthusiastic about the role he would play. Poitier starred opposite River Phoenix, who was emerging as a big young star after critically acclaimed performances in Stand By Me (1986) and The Mosquito Coast (1986). According to biographer Barry C. Lawrence, Phoenix got along very well with Poitier on and off the set; the two made some of the most glowing comments and laudatory compliments about the other's acting abilities. The same could not be said about Phoenix's sometime distant relationship with director Richard Benjamin. Phoenix told various folks that Benjamin treated him like a child because he wasn't allowed to see the daily rushes. Although Phoenix felt that his performance in the film was uneven, he acknowledged that Benjamin was more communicative with him on the set as the director gave him clear guidance about what he wanted the actor to do.

Little Nikita is set during a period where there appears to be improved relations between the US and the Soviet Union. (In the scene at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, there is TV footage of one of Reagan and Gorbachev's summits.) John Hill and Bo Goldman's screenplay, however, establishes and maintains that tension still exists between the two superpowers. For example, renegade double agent Scuba (Richard Lynch) is portrayed as a ruthless shark, taking out Russian "sleeper agents" who have been living in America for a while. It seems that Scuba's motive, besides being just a remorseless killer, is that these clandestine Soviet spies know too much about the Motherland and may report their intel secrets to American authorities. KGB agent Konstantin Karpov (Richard Bradford) is sent from the Mexico City embassy to San Diego in order to placate the situation and repatriate Scuba back to Russia. However, there are other elements at play. FBI agent Roy Parmenter (Poitier) has a personal vendetta against Scuba because he bumped off Parmenter's partner twenty years prior. Roy and Konstantin also have a history together and their paths are destined to cross once again.

The human and emotional center of the story is Jeffrey Grant (Phoenix), a bright high school senior who has several friends and his own car. Grant's parents, Richard Grant (Richard Jenkins) and Elizabeth Grant (Caroline Kava), are respected citizens in their community but have brought a past with them from Russia that Jeff does not know about. Hill and Goldman's script uses a plot device so Roy can arrange a meeting with Jeff. Jeff has aspirations of joining the Air Force so Roy poses as a AF major upon the youngster's visit to the site. Soon Roy moves into an older house across the street from the Grants in order to keep tabs on them. Indeed, Roy fears that Scuba and/or Konstantin are after the Grants.

FBI agent Roy Parmenter confronts the Grants in the greenhouse.

Little Nikita features wonderful performances by Poitier and Phoenix along with solid supporting turns by veteran character actors Richard Jenkins and Caroline Kava. The quartet makes up for ridiculous plotting and a predictable story. For instance, there is a completely unnecessary romance thrown in that teems Roy with Verna McLaughlin (Loretta Devine), a school administrator who looks into Jeff's records for the FBI agent. (There is one funny scene between the couple that probably brought the house down when the film was shown in theaters.) Additionally, Hill and Goldman add another subplot involving Jeff and his girlfriend, Barbara Kerry (Lucy Deakins), which is woefully undeveloped since it doesn't go anywhere. I also have to question Benjamin's direction for a key scene on a bridge, which I won't reveal. The climax and ending are too neat and tidy.

Marvin Hamlisch's diverse score is very good (it contains, appropriately enough, Russian folk instrumentals) but it rips off Bernard Herrmann with screechy strings and dissonant synths added. This may, in fact, had been an intentional parody since Benjamin also lampoons the famous shower scene from Psycho. Music and photography are actually one of the central highlights of the film, though. Little Nikita contains a breathtaking operatic performance of Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" that is attended by Elizabeth, Richard, and surprise guest Konstantin. This is cross-cut with Jeff unburying the secrets from his parents' past, a sequence in which Jacqueline Cambas's editing truly works for the picture. Credit should also go to the late great cinematographer László Kovács, whose lensing is splendid throughout the film.

Little Nikita Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mill Creek Entertainment has licensed Little Nikita from Sony Pictures and brought Benjamin's movie to Blu-ray for the first time. The Minneapolis-based indie label presents the film in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which opens up the original ratio of 1.85:1. This is an odd decision on Mill Creek's part since they essentially recycled the 2002 Columbia/Tri-Star DVD, which was in the native 1.85:1. I would almost say that this is an upconversion of the DVD picture since this BD-25 uses the antiquated MPEG-2 codec and displays a similar image without any additional restoration work. The dust speckles percolating around the lady on the old Columbia logo are a telling sign of what is to come. There are intermittent speckles and reel change marks throughout but thankfully not in every shot. I do remember the DVD showing a bit more dirt and this BD transfer doesn't appear to have as coarse of a grain structure (though grain is retained). The picture does benefit from the added resolution (with a healthy bitrate of 30000 kbps) and colors appear pretty decently rendered, if unspectacular. I wasn't hoping for any miracles but Mill Creek could have expunged the glaring defects on the print. An average transfer but a step up from the DVD.

Little Nikita Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mill Creek improves in the audio department with a clean PCM 2.0 Stereo mix. The sound track is very well balanced with decent depth for a 1988 recording. The film is in English save for a scene including Russian dialogue in which there are burned-in English subtitles. The front channels show a little separation during the action scenes and when a aircraft carrier takes off. The original master is in good shape as evidenced by the lack of analog noise or auditory dropouts on the track. Note that during the main titles, there is a performance by the town's marching band of Bruce Broughton's main theme from Silverado, which was a Columbia production three years earlier. This piece went unacknowledged in the final soundtrack credits.

Mill Creek has supplied optional English subtitles for the feature.

Little Nikita Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Columbia DVD included an original theatrical trailer for Little Nikita as well as two bonus trailers. There is zilch on this disc. Mill Creek only includes a mini-menu with an option to play the film and choose subtitles.

Little Nikita Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Little Nikita is an enjoyable Cold War thriller if you can get past the absurd plotting and formulaic story. I was disappointed that Mill Creek did next to nothing with Columbia's old transfer and would expect that a different label could easily best this edition. The movie isn't great or memorable but still deserves a new 2K scan for its stellar cast. Hopefully, more of River Phoenix's films will come to Blu-ray, particularly Sidney Lumet's superior Running on Empty (1988). (Where are you Warner Archive Collection?) The disc is as bare bones as they come but fans of Poitier and Phoenix may want to add it to their digital collections. A MILD RECOMMENDATION for Little Nikita.