Little Ni-who-ta?

I might not have been in the best headspace when we sat down to watch the next movie in River Phoenix's filmography. Three of his movies came out in 1988. The first was A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, which blog readers will remember was not well-received (by me). 

The last Phoenix movie of 1988 was Running on Empty, which marked my introduction to River lo these many years ago, and which I immediately loved (both him and the movie). I've seen it many times, but probably not for at least 25 years, and I'm so looking forward to seeing it again, and desperately hoping that it lives up to my memory and isn't full of homophobia or racism or other 1980s disappointments. 

PLEASE let Running on Empty have aged well!
Photo Credit: Matt Brooks

And the middle Phoenix film of 1988 is the one this post is about, Little Nikita. Caught between the horror of Jimmy Reardon, and my baited anticipation of Running on Empty, it's possible I wasn't as focused as I could have been. The notes I took while watching Little Nikita are sparse because...it's fine. It's a perfectly fine movie. It's a Russian spy story that seems to hold together. Sydney Poitier is in it and he's lovely (fun fact that my husband reminded me of: Poitier and Phoenix will work together again in the 1992 movie Sneakers which I am also looking forward to re-watching). My biggest complaint is that the audience learns the big secret in the movie early on and we then spend about 30 minutes watching Phoenix learn the same thing which isn't the most riveting storytelling, but it's fine. There's a perfectly fine chase scene at the end, and it's all   just   fine.

There's some fun early exploration of technology when Poitier's computer pulls up a "record" (see: single line of green text) of someone who has died, but that same individual, years after their death, opened a business, and the computer then blasts us with a very large text box in a different font declaring "DOES NOT COMPUTE." I actually wish this was how computers worked, so when I typed into Google "do I need a hyper-realistic dinosaur costume," it just tells me "DOES NOT COMPUTE" and I have my answer (I do need one, by the way. I don't care what Google has to say). 

That's some snazzy early coding right there!
Photo Credit: Raimond Spekking

Watching the opening credits it struck me that there are a lot of guys named Richard in this movie. Three of the main actors (after Poitier and Phoenix) are all named Richard, one of the characters is named Richard, and the movie was directed by a Richard. I thought about making a joke that this was a real dick movie, and I guess I just did.

So while I don't have a whole lot to say about this movie plot-wise, I have a few things to say about River. Because while teenage Amy would not have liked River's character Jimmy Reardon (god, I hope she wouldn't have liked him!), I think she would have been smitten with Jeff Grant in Little Nikita. His hair is very swoopy and floppy, which for some reason was important to her. He twice (!) wears a tank top. And he goes on a completely charming date with his girlfriend Barbara in the middle of the movie. It's a scene that does nothing to move the plot along, but I loved it. They're at a drive in with a bunch of other kids, then Jeff and Barbara split off, share one kiss (chaste, but not too chaste), and then absolutely devour their french fries. A date like that with a non-threatening boy would have been right up young Amy's alley. Heck, I would still consider that  a slam-dunk of a date.

Primo Reading Material
Still shot from The Simpsons

I don't believe Little Nikita will stick with me, and that's not entirely the movie's fault, but rather its placement in Phoenix's filmography. I feel confident in saying that if you're going to watch one River Phoenix movie from 1988, it should be Running on Empty, but I will confirm that in our next installment!