Sidney Poitier has a stellar career, but you can't hit a homerun every at bat. Sometimes you ground out and sometimes you strike out. It doesn't spell the end of a guy's career, it's just a bad at-bat. If Poitier's career were analogous to a baseball player's career, then he'd be averaging .400 with 4,000 hits and 700 home runs. Unanimous first ballot hall of famer.
"Little Nikita" was a strikeout swinging at a pitch that sailed over the catchers head. It was awful. But consider this: Poitier had been out of action for eleven years. He'd done "A Piece of the Action" in 1977 and didn't do anything until "Shoot to Kill" and "Little Nikita" both in 1988. What I'm saying is: I don't blame Poitier for this rancid manure that's not fit to be fertilizer.
The plot was horrible. Maybe someone can explain this to me. How is it that the U.S. government is aware of Russian sleeper cells in America yet they do nothing about them because, "They haven't done anything yet"?
What? Being a sleeper cell isn't enough? They have to do "something."
In the second scene of the movie a Russian agent codenamed SCUBA killed a Russian sleeper agent. FBI agent Roy Parmenter (Poitier) was all over this assassination. He saw a pattern of Russian sleeper agents being bumped off by SCUBA. Roy wants SCUBA because he killed his partner 20 years prior except Roy can't get the OK from the FBI. In other words, he'll have to take SCUBA alone. I call that strike one.
Somehow Roy finds out who SCUBA's eventual targets will be--Mr. and Mrs. Grant, parents of a Jeff Grant (River Phoenix). What Roy does next is beyond curious. He essentially marks 17-year-old Jeff in order to get close to the parents and find out more about them. He was soliciting help from an unwitting teenager. In what universe does an agent develop a relationship with a 17-year-old boy to find out about his sleeper cell Russian parents? I call that strike two.
At the same time Roy is looking for SCUBA there is a Russian agent named Konstantin (Richard Bradford) also looking for SCUBA. The two of them want the same thing: SCUBA dead or in jail.
SCUBA is extorting the Russian government for $200,000. He promised to continue killing Russian agents until they paid up. Of course, the last two agents on his list were Mr. and Mrs. Grant who by this time were all-American. They were more Americanized than a descendant of George Washington. Konstantin activates them to use them as bait. He wants them to deliver the $200,000 to SCUBA in order to draw him out. The all-American Russians are severely out of practice and refuse to do their duty. Konstantin holds their son hostage to force their hand. The trade goes bad, a Mexican migrant family gets the money, Roy gets SCUBA, Konstantin keeps Jeff and is going to take him to Russia presumably.
Eventually there's a Mexican standoff, SCUBA is shot, Konstantin takes the dead body back to Russia, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant get their son and say, "Let's go home." I call that strike three. You're out!!
"Let's go home"?!? These are two Russian spies and I wouldn't care how much apple pie they eat and baseball they watch. They were living under false identities, they were never naturalized and given American citizenship, so how does that work? We leave them alone until they're contacted again and hope that they don't respond? This is one of the most bizarre plots I've ever seen.
Just to recap:
~Russian spy killing other Russian spies on American soil and FBI nor CIA do anything about it.
~FBI agent goes to Russian agents' kid for help
~Russians waltz right out of the U.S. with dead body of Russian killer
~Ward and June Cleaver-ski go back "home" to Fountain Grove, CA to continue their all-American life as sleeper agents.
Plot failure complete.
"Little Nikita" was a strikeout swinging at a pitch that sailed over the catchers head. It was awful. But consider this: Poitier had been out of action for eleven years. He'd done "A Piece of the Action" in 1977 and didn't do anything until "Shoot to Kill" and "Little Nikita" both in 1988. What I'm saying is: I don't blame Poitier for this rancid manure that's not fit to be fertilizer.
The plot was horrible. Maybe someone can explain this to me. How is it that the U.S. government is aware of Russian sleeper cells in America yet they do nothing about them because, "They haven't done anything yet"?
What? Being a sleeper cell isn't enough? They have to do "something."
In the second scene of the movie a Russian agent codenamed SCUBA killed a Russian sleeper agent. FBI agent Roy Parmenter (Poitier) was all over this assassination. He saw a pattern of Russian sleeper agents being bumped off by SCUBA. Roy wants SCUBA because he killed his partner 20 years prior except Roy can't get the OK from the FBI. In other words, he'll have to take SCUBA alone. I call that strike one.
Somehow Roy finds out who SCUBA's eventual targets will be--Mr. and Mrs. Grant, parents of a Jeff Grant (River Phoenix). What Roy does next is beyond curious. He essentially marks 17-year-old Jeff in order to get close to the parents and find out more about them. He was soliciting help from an unwitting teenager. In what universe does an agent develop a relationship with a 17-year-old boy to find out about his sleeper cell Russian parents? I call that strike two.
At the same time Roy is looking for SCUBA there is a Russian agent named Konstantin (Richard Bradford) also looking for SCUBA. The two of them want the same thing: SCUBA dead or in jail.
SCUBA is extorting the Russian government for $200,000. He promised to continue killing Russian agents until they paid up. Of course, the last two agents on his list were Mr. and Mrs. Grant who by this time were all-American. They were more Americanized than a descendant of George Washington. Konstantin activates them to use them as bait. He wants them to deliver the $200,000 to SCUBA in order to draw him out. The all-American Russians are severely out of practice and refuse to do their duty. Konstantin holds their son hostage to force their hand. The trade goes bad, a Mexican migrant family gets the money, Roy gets SCUBA, Konstantin keeps Jeff and is going to take him to Russia presumably.
Eventually there's a Mexican standoff, SCUBA is shot, Konstantin takes the dead body back to Russia, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant get their son and say, "Let's go home." I call that strike three. You're out!!
"Let's go home"?!? These are two Russian spies and I wouldn't care how much apple pie they eat and baseball they watch. They were living under false identities, they were never naturalized and given American citizenship, so how does that work? We leave them alone until they're contacted again and hope that they don't respond? This is one of the most bizarre plots I've ever seen.
Just to recap:
~Russian spy killing other Russian spies on American soil and FBI nor CIA do anything about it.
~FBI agent goes to Russian agents' kid for help
~Russians waltz right out of the U.S. with dead body of Russian killer
~Ward and June Cleaver-ski go back "home" to Fountain Grove, CA to continue their all-American life as sleeper agents.
Plot failure complete.