This is the most violent film I have ever seen. I don't particularly like violent films, I'm not a huge action fan, and I dislike thrillers. But I was completely spellbound by this film.<br /><br />I've never left another theater and found myself walking with my back to the wall.<br /><br />There are other films with more blood and gore, more dead bodies, more gunshots, and more action. But for sheer cold violence - Victor, Nettoyer - nothing comes close to La Femme Nikita.* And the violence doesn't stop at the physical - it continues down burrowing down into the psychology. <br /><br />But the reasons it is so good are not so easy to identify. <br /><br />There may be clues in the many spin-offs and remakes may provide some clues - because none of them are remotely close. So it can't be purely the story, or the premise. And other actors with arguably more experience haven't delivered on the role, so it's not solely the acting (or actors).<br /><br />And there are some aspects of the production that are distinctly unpromising - in particular the fact that the director created the film purely as a vehicle to allow (girlfriend?) Parillaud to break out of the stereotype straight-jacket she was sewn into by her prior roles. There's no doubt Peraud is attractively packaged, and for males at least the role could create a fatal fascination with the female spider. But dropping other attractive actresses into hot roles is usually a guarantee of mediocrity or comic-strip soft porn.<br /><br />Perhaps the foreign language helps to make the other world both more exotic, yet more believable at the same time? But there must be far more to it than that.<br /><br />So often directors, writers, actors and studios set out to make a 'great' film, and despite all the money, talent and attention, it goes nowhere special.<br /><br />Yet on some less promising evening, all the stars and planets align on cue: The story may be discomforting, the violence offensive, actors and directors you have never heard of, in a language you cannot understand - but you are absolutely transfixed.<br /><br />There are some weak points to the film, particularly in the early going, where belief is stretched too thin before you are drawn down into another world. It is unfortunate because these probably could have been avoided, and the film would have approached perfection. It would be nice to give it a 10, but it's not there.<br /><br />But even as it is, I find it amazing that a film can be so good as to make me love something I don't like.<br /><br />You may not enjoy this film. You may not approve of this film. You might not sleep easily after this film. But you will feel as though you have seen truly great cinema.<br /><br />The downside? Films like this make run-of-the-mill TV and movies impossible to waste your time watching.<br /><br />*Except perhaps Pulp Fiction, but the spider's web there was more coarsely spun.