A dismal little espionage thriller that proposes to put an old shoe on another foot. All decent Americans, of course, are brought up to shudder in horror at the thought -- and not just thought, but absolute certain fact -- of little Russian children ratting to the authorities on their own parents if, say, the latter are found to be hiding a copy of Dr. Zhivago (or Dr. No) at the bottom of their sock drawer. In Little Nikita, an average American high-school boy, with ambitions toward the Air Force Academy, is asked to do the same thing, but it's all right in this case because his parents are Commie spies. This situation might have been more interesting if the parents had been active agents and not something self-explanatorily called "sleepers." No such alteration, though, would probably have made much difference. The besetting problem here can be posed in the form of a paradox: Richard Benjamin is the director of the movie, but Richard Benjamin is not a director. The staging is flat and lethargic, or at best ineffectually busy, and (talk about "sleepers"!) isn't able to rouse itself even for the action climaxes. With Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, and Richard Bradford. (1988) — Duncan Shepherd
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