{"id":18667,"date":"2014-08-22T20:23:51","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T00:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=18667"},"modified":"2016-01-20T20:32:32","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T01:32:32","slug":"point-of-no-return-1993","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/22\/point-of-no-return-1993\/","title":{"rendered":"Point of No Return (1993)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PNR_Bridget_Fonda\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The biggest difference that sets John Badham\u2019s remake apart from Luc Besson\u2019s original \u201cLa Femme Nikita\u201d is the context of the decade. Even set in the late eighties to early nineties, Besson\u2019s original has a very timeless appeal to it and is still a template for many action films. John Badham\u2019s remake though is very soaked in nineties ephemera, to the point where you can almost hear \u201c90210\u201d playing in the background of every scene. Thus it distracts from the story Badham is trying to tell. Which is a stacked deck, considering \u201cPoint of No Return\u201d is a weak retread of an action masterpiece.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s by no means awful, but I won\u2019t re-watch it any time soon, unless I intend to gawk at Bridget Fonda. If anyone is fit to take over for the role of Anne Parillaud, it\u2019s Bridget Fonda, who at her prime was alluring and damn sexy. Fonda really puts her all in to what is a limp remake of the Besson film, offering her own take on the original punk rock drug addicted character, while also paying homage in small instances. Director Badham sticks true to the original film in many respects, even establishing the character the same way the Besson did. During a botched robbery of a local grocery store, a group of gangsters kill the owner of the store and flee leaving Maggie behind.<\/p>\n

Proceeding to murder a cop, she\u2019s taken in to custody and given the lethal injection. She awakens in a top secret facility where she\u2019s now being trained and mentor to become an assassin. Though the world thinks she\u2019s dead, she\u2019s very much alive, and is given the ultimatum to train as a skilled hit woman, or actually die from a lethal injection for her crimes. The fault here is that Fonda injects much more pathos and substance to the role of Maggie, where as Parillaud felt like a feral street urchin with almost no past, and definitely no future. Fonda plays Maggie much too sane, so her transformation in to elegant hit woman really isn\u2019t startling at all. Beyond that, director Badham Hollywoodizes this version with a very heavy emphases on romance, and love triangles.<\/p>\n

Maggie\u2019s moving to a new city eventually leads to her befriending and eventually romancing a local surfer and bachelor (Dermot Mulroney) resulting in a lot of really boring and tedious love montages that pack in the cheese shamelessly. The action becomes nothing but an afterthought for much of the second half, which is a shame considering we should be seeing how Maggie\u2019s new life interferes with her attempts at normality. When Badham actually zeroes in on the action, there\u2019s no style or urgency to it, and he also painfully misuses the character of the Cleaner. \u201cPoint of No Return\u201d is a pointless and often bland reworking of the electric Besson original, but it\u2019s definitely worth visiting if you\u2019re a fan of Fonda\u2019s work. This certainly would not be the last time Besson\u2019s \u201cLa Femme Nikita\u201d was mined for more remakes and retreads, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The biggest difference that sets John Badham\u2019s remake apart from Luc Besson\u2019s original \u201cLa Femme Nikita\u201d is the context of the decade. Even set in the late eighties to early nineties, Besson\u2019s original has a very timeless appeal to it and is still a template for many action films. John Badham\u2019s remake though is very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[58,71,302,752,835,874,1087],"class_list":["post-18667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-packed-april","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-drama","tag-p","tag-remake","tag-romance","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18669,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18667\/revisions\/18669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}