“I just blew up a hotel. How the hell do you think I am?”

Justin’s rating: Fond of Fonda

Justin’s review: Before we get into this review, I think we need to give Bridget Fonda a Mutant Reviewers salute for being a hard-working powerhouse in the ’90s. She may have only been active for that decade (plus a couple years on either side), but Fonda cranked out dozens of performances including Army of Darkness, Lake Placid, and Singles during that time. As far as I know, Point of No Return was her step up into a lead action role, and if you’re only going to be remembered for one of these, it’s not a half-bad pick.

I’m not really interested in getting into the whole larger debate over La Femme Nikita and the comparisons between all of its movie and TV offshoots, including this ’93 remake of Luc Besson’s ’90 original. I think it deserves to be treated as its own entity without that kind of artificial baggage, so I’m coming to it fresh.

Plus, are we really going to turn up our noses at a female-led action movie from this decade? It’s not like we were drowning in them.

Fonda is Maggie, a drug addict who gets the death penalty for killing a cop during a robbery. Yanked from her staged execution, she’s given a choice: Become a highly trained assassin or die for real. I assume that this is the standard recruitment procedure for shadowy government agencies and possibly hosts of Nickelodeon game shows.

Maggie begins her training under the guidance of her cold and calculating handler Bob (Gabriel Byrne), who urges her to use her life to help her country. She’s not initially on board with this, staging an impromptu breakout that shows a bit of the mettle that lies beneath her surface.

This mixture of extreme defiance and the ability to improvise on the spot made Maggie immediately magnetic to watch. Her training in secret assassin spy school attempts to harness that energy, but she’s not going to do it happily or willingly. Faster than you can say “magical montages,” Maggie’s a skilled weapon ready to infiltrate and kill.

Once on the job, Maggie realizes two things: That she’s very, very good at taking out targets — and that she rather loathes the life of a hitman. Also, she has a complicated relationship with Bob, something between a father/daughter, lover/lover, and mentor/mentee thing. Also also, she starts falling for a surfer photographer who starts to get suspicious that she’s hiding something.

The big question that this movie dangles is the mystery of the organization that recruits her. That’s what I wanted explored, especially since it’s portrayed as being fairly ruthless and never explains who these people are that she’s killing and what they’ve done to deserve it.  Alas, this remains dangling all the way into the end credits.

I was seriously impressed at the actor line up that they got here, including Dermot Mulroney (with dark hair and a beard!), Anne Bancroft, Harvey Keitel, Miguel Ferrer, and Michael Rapaport. And Hans Zimmer’s score is electrifying, almost a character unto itself.

Point of No Return is a strangely divisive movie. Depending on who you ask, it’s either an underrated action flick with a great heroine or a limp, lame remake that shouldn’t have been attempted. Movies that elicit such polarizing extreme reactions fascinate me. Why is no one really in the middle on this? No idea.

Generally? I liked it for its slick ’90s presentation, bursts of humor, and just about everything that Bridget Fonda brings to this role. Seriously, she’s tremendous. I do wish that there was less on the lovey dovey side of things and a good deal more action, as what’s here is interesting. But it’s a good reminder that I was wise in turning down that offer to become a secret government hit man back in ’96. I don’t think I could’ve pulled off the costume changes.

Intermission!

• That opening theme song kicks butt — thank you, composer Hans Zimmer!
• Dutch angles is how you know bad guys are really, like, bad
• These are the least subtle robbers ever
• I like the cop who jumps out of the car with this giant sniper rifle like he just got it for his birthday and is so excited to use it
• PENCIL IN THE HAND
• Maggie gets the shortest death row stay ever
• The camera shot of Maggie peeing the lethal injection table was essential for reasons
• Nina Simone is good music
• That is a chunky Apple mouse
• “What was that?” “Fun.”
• Maggie’s spray painted room is not an improvement
• The bricked-up window of the women’s stall
• Lots of bodyguards carry rocket-propelled grenades into restaurants, why do you ask?
• “I’ll never kiss you again.”
• Random act of rollerblading
• That is one trashed apartment… with a great view
• She really likes those $1.07 raviolis
• RAVIOLI KISS
• “You’re like living with a ghost.”
• Turning a bathroom into a sniper’s nest
• “This one is stupid. The other one is stupider.”
• Harvey Keitel as the Cleaner
• “I never did mind about the little things.”
• When you’re melting off someone’s face, make sure they’re dead
• Don’t tell the Cleaner to move the car