Point of No Return.

Not much need be said about John Badham's Point of No Return; if Falling Down exaggerates a valid point, this Point magnifies an invalid one monstrously. It is the American remake of Luc Besson's French thriller La Femme Nikita--a trashy but effective piece of goods--and is, in the way of such supererogatory Hollywood remakes of European movies, trashier and less effective.

The heroine, a juvenile gang member and cop-killer, is turned by some unnamed government agency into a kind of killer cop--an undercover agent specializing in high-level political assassination, who eventually falls in love and develops a moral conscience. She was embodied in the original by the remarkable Anne Parillaud, since co-opted by Hollywood and poorly used. Here, the part is played by Bridget Fonda, not quite so sexily and well, but not without genuine allure and appeal. The mature leading man, as so often these days, has to be imported, and is played with a lovely but unsuited Irish lilt by Gabriel Byrne; the other, more delicate leading man is played by the home-grown Dermot Mulroney, deplorable as usual. I was fascinated by one thing, though. Part of remodeling our murderous guttersnipe into a high-fashion lethal weapon consists of teaching her good manners and good English, and we see her being taught by superagent Anne Bancroft (!) not to say "between she and I." Yet, later on, we hear her announce: "I could care less!" Can we rest easy while such a key government agency is doing its important job halfway?