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"Little Nikita" is a good thriller and I found it really enjoyable. I am glad that the lovely Loretta Devine (who played Reese in Urban Legend 1 and 2) had the honour of working with River Phoenix before his death. Sidney Poitier gives a good performance also. I found it highly entertaining and enjoyable. And once again, River Phoenix becomes his character in this taut thriller from Richard Benjamin.

Little Nikita is a well done thriller. I found it entertaining and well acted. I am extremely glad that the lovely Loretta Devine (who played Reese in Urban Legend 1 and 2) had the honour of working with River Phoenix before he died. For fans of River Phoenix and taut thrillers, check this one out.

This was a fairly involving story, although it's better in the first half. After that, the kid gets annoying but then the film picks back up in the last 15 minutes. The story is about this teen boy "Jeff Grant" (River Phoenix) who discovers his parents are "sleepr" KGB agents, spies are out of the business. They have come to the United States to start over with their kid.

Meanwhile, an assassin is killing those former, or "sleeper," if you will, agents. "Roy Parmenter" (Sidney Poitier), an FBI man, is after anyone it seems. That last part is a bit confusing.

The story taxes ones believability here and there but is interesting most of the way. However, I thought Phoenix overacts in a number of scenes. This was far from his best performance in his abbreviated film career.

It's easy to look back now at this film as a very average Cold War thriller, but that is with the benefit of hindsight. It's difficult for today's generation, those of the age that the Phoenix character plays, to appreciate that the world really was living with a possible Nuclear destruction if there had been an accident or serious misunderstanding.

The action and drama is really primarily psychological, with the heart of the film hinging on the Poitier and Phoenix performances. It's easy now to pass off the whole thing as a trivial character piece, but, then, the stakes were sky high and the Cold War themes were progressive and unusual. In our post Cold War world where Gorbachev and Reagan slowly recede into the mists of history it would be a shame to write of this movie without understanding the atmosphere it was made in.

On one level, "Little Nikita" is just another silly action movie. But strong performances and some interesting turns keep this one afloat. FBI agent Roy Parmenter (Sidney Poitier) interviews teenager Jeff Grant (River Phoenix), who is trying to get into the Air Force Academy. But while reviewing Jeff, Roy discovers the most surprising thing of all: Jeff's parents are Soviet "sleeper" spies who fled to the United States and never told him about their history. Moreover, there's renegade Soviet agent Scuba - who murdered Roy's partner many years earlier - looking for Jeff, while the USSR has sent someone to capture Scuba! Yeah, it's beyond convoluted, and - quite frankly - improbable. But director Richard Benjamin knows how to to do it. There isn't a dull moment anywhere in the movie. Pretty interesting. And playing Jeff's dad is Richard Jenkins, aka Nate Sr on "Six Feet Under".