It's sentimental favorite time at Hot Toasty Rag. Point of No Return is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I've seen it hundreds of times. It used to be my Wednesday night ritual, since Wednesdays have always been my favorite day of the week, to pop in my VHS copy of the fantastic '90s thriller. When I went to college, I bought a DVD. Imagine my incredible shock to find out, when looking over my course list, that one of my teachers was the director of my favorite movie! Now, I have a second DVD copy. My first one rests on my bookshelf, the cover signed by John Badham.

I could talk for hours (and I frequently do) about Professor Badham's classes, the highlight of my entire college career. But for the sake of this review it doesn't really matter that he dedicated a whole class to Point of No Return because he knew I loved it, or that he was kinder to me than anyone else at the entire school. Since I'd already watched the movie a hundred times before I met him, I'll just discuss the film itself.

At the heart of the story is a woman who is stronger than she thinks. Bridget Fonda starts the movie on drugs, floundering around with a bad attitude and a bad crowd. After killing a cop during an armed robbery, she's given the death penalty. After the lethal injection, she wakes up in a new room with a kind-looking Gabriel Byrne smiling at her. "You're dead," he says, adding after a pause, "at least that's what everybody thinks." He shows her pictures of her funeral and where she's been buried, then explains that she's been rescued to participate in covert missions for the greater good. If she refuses to cooperate, she'll be killed and placed right where everyone thinks she already is.

Secret agent training begins, with lessons in martial arts, elocution, posture, table manners, shooting, and computer skills. It's very fun to see a 1993 computer, just as it's a relief to watch a movie without constant text messaging from smart phones. When Bridget gets a message for an upcoming mission, it's from a telephone call on her landline! She never opens up an email to read, but instead gets documents hand-delivered to her back door. If you think that sounds out-of-date and suspenseful, you've got a big surprise in store for you. A call from her landline phone is very suspenseful, because she's in the middle of a smooching session with her boyfriend and isn't given the warning of caller-ID before she picks up. When Gabriel Byrne shows up at her back door, it's particularly menacing because he's delivering documents as well as a warning of what will happen to her if she doesn't complete her assignment.

In one of my favorite of her performances, Anne Bancroft delivers some sage advice while training Bridget in elegance. "Always smile when you enter a room. It relaxes others, and it lifts the features of the face." Bridget is a tough cookie and starts off being a poor student, so Anne is forced to change her teaching tactics. She drops her smile and calm demeanor and shows she's strong and aggressive underneath it all. Whenever life isn't going my way, I remember one of my favorite scenes and quote Anne Bancroft with a smile: "I never did mind the little things."

Every scene is my favorite scene, but if I had to pinpoint two to illustrate a point, they both share a similar theme: Bridget's happiness is ruined by an unexpected gun. In one scene, Gabriel Byrne takes her out to dinner, and she mistakenly thinks he's being sweet and romantic. Champagne is ordered, she's wearing a brand-new dress, she squeezes his hand - and then he gives her a present. Inside the box is a gun, and he whispers instructions for the assassination she must complete. In the other, she's enjoying a romantic getaway during Mardi Gras with her boyfriend, Dermot Mulroney. She's just ordered room service when the hotel phone rings. She pretends it's room service with an update on her order, but it's instructions for another assassination. She disappears to the bathroom with a rouse of taking a bubble bath, but instead, she finds a rifle hidden in a compartment and takes aim through the window. They're both very tense scenes, and they both illustrate precisely why I love the movie. When you think you're at the top, life can turn sour on an unexpected moment's notice. You've got to do what Bridget Fonda does: take the gun and complete the mission. Just kidding; but you know what I mean.

If 1993 passed you by, you've got to get yourself a copy of Point of No Return. Watching it once won't be enough. You might not make it your Wednesday night ritual for years, but whenever you're feeling like life beat you down, you'll be drawn to this fantastic action movie with a beautiful leading lady, a great soundtrack full of Nina Simone tunes, and Plus, after reading my review, you'll have the knowledge that not only did the director masterfully handle the timing, illustrate the 'master shot', and keep the suspense during a mixture of action, romantic, and dramatic scenes, but he's also one of the nicest men you'll ever meet. And keep an eye out for him bringing in the room service cart! I always wave at the screen and shout out a hello.

Yes, it's a bad remake of La Femme Nikita--yes, it's overly violent and amoral (but so was the original)--yes, it's REALLY stupid, but I enjoyed it. It moves quickly, Fonda manages to give out a pretty good performance and it's certainly never boring. If you can turn off your brain, and sit through bursts of graphic violence (and a really sick sequence involving Harvey Keitel as "The Cleaner") you should be able to enjoy it. No great movie, just a really good bad movie. Critics predictably hated this movie. There's a now infamous review from the "New Yorker" magazine that's only 9 words long--"The end of French cinema as we know it." Ignore them--this is lots of fun.

Being a remake of Luc Besson's "Nikita" (1990), this is quite an average hollywood remake of a very interesting french movie. The french original is much better in terms of direction and story, but Bridget Fonda's acting is marvellous, outstanding and considerably better than her french counterpart's in "Nikita". And this is exactly the reason to watch this movie, Fonda's performance is a thing you should definitely not miss.