Director: John Badham
Cast: Bridget Fonda. Gabriel Byrne. Dermot Mulroney. Anne Bancroft.
Conspiracy theorists will love this film. The premise is simple.
A secret Government department trains young people convicted of severe crimes into an assassin squad. In this case, a female drug addict Maggie (Bridget Fonda) who has been involved in a violent armed robbery is sentenced to death. She wakes up to find that she has been shanghaied into a secret Government unit whose purpose seems to be extra-legal assassinations
She gets trained and is “released” for her final test – making an actual killing and escaping from a restaurant.
“Released”, she finds romance with an apartment owner J.P (Dermot Mulroney) and moves in with him. Her romantic bliss is checked occasionally by her “uncle Bob”, her trainer (Gabriel Byrne), who points her towards one killing after another.Soon she is tired of the killings and wants to move away and live a quiet life.
However, there is no escape. She has already passed the point of no return …..
John Badham is an excellent director who has delivered one hit after another since his breakthrough with the mega-hit Saturday Night Fever. A series of hits followed in the 1980s and the 1990s. After this, he went back to his TV series background. This is a pity as Point of No Return, aka The Assassin, was taut at places. It has been copy-pasted from its French Original la Femme Nikita (1990) by Luc Besson, who is credited with the story. This is probably the issue because something of the French film’s original “raw” “in your face” nature is polished and presented to us as a suave product. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have its high-energy moment.
Maggie’s final test – to shoot a person and escape through a “secret door” that doesn’t exist – is a high-voltage action-packed sequence. What sounds unreasonable is Maggie starting to dislike and ultimately become frightened by the job she finds “tiring”. Never mind if the Departmental Head says she isn’t suitable for the job while Uncle Bob protects her.
There are some contradictions to her character – if she was so worried about the killings, would her “soul” really take it even after she wants to quit? And it’s clear that, like Pygmalion, Uncle Bob has fallen in love with his creation.
Watch out for Harvey Keitel as his usual menacing self as the “cleaner”.
A quick word about the French original. in equal measures stylish and raw high energy often violent action. Yet something seems to have been lost in translation from French to English.
Point of No Return can be viewed for free below (lots of ads and pop-ups).
https://bingewatch.to/watch-movie/watch-point-of-no-return-hd-13823/1092503
Script – 3 out of 5
Story – 4 out of 5
Direction – 4 out of 5
Photography – 4 out of 5
“Masala elements” (maximum=0 minimum=5) – 3
Total – 3.6 out of 5
Last but the least. If the Americans can copy a French film, can we Desis, be far behind? Indeed. Kartoos (1999) is a remake of the movie, directed by Mahesh Bhatt, except that the drug addict becomes criminal Raja (Sanjay Dutt), and Uncle Bob is ACP Jay (Jackie Shroff) who wants to eliminate underworld Dons, international arms dealers, drug lords and sleazy politicians (such a rich variety of victims) .
After the spate of killings, Raja grows a soul when he falls in love with an innocent woman Mini (Manisha Koirala). The film is a fair copy, and it would have been taut if the songs had been dispensed with. Like the American film, it is good in places. It is free on YouTube.
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