Plot
Nikita is a feral, vicious and ruthless junkie (drug addict).
One night, she participates in the robbery of a pharmacy owned by a friend's parents. The robbery erupts into a gunfight with local police, and her accomplices are killed. Suffering severe withdrawal symptoms, she murders a police officer. Nikita is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder, and is sentenced to life in prison.
In prison, government officials fake her death, making it appear that she has committed suicide, and remove her from prison. She awakens in a nondescript room, where a well-dressed, hard-looking man named Bob tells her that, although officially dead and buried, she is in the custody of a shadowy government agency known as "the Centre" (possibly part of the DGSE). She is given the choice of becoming an assassin or occupying "row 8, plot 30", her fake grave. After some resistance, she chooses the former and gradually proves to be a talented killer. She is taught computer skills, martial arts, and use of firearms. One of her trainers, Amande, transforms her from a degenerate drug addict to a femme fatale. Amande implies that she also was rescued and trained by the Centre.
Nikita's initial mission, killing a foreign diplomat in a crowded restaurant and escaping from his well-armed bodyguards to the Centre, doubles as the final test in her training. She graduates and begins life as a sleeper agent in Paris under the name Marie. After meeting a cashier named Marco in a supermarket, the two develop an intimate relationship, although he knows nothing of her real work. Marco is curious about her past and why she has no family or other friends. Nikita invites Bob to dinner as "Uncle Bob". He tells stories about "Marie's" fabricated childhood and gives the couple tickets for a trip to Venice, purportedly as an engagement gift.
Nikita and Marco go on the trip. As they prepare to have sex after arrival, the phone rings. She presumes it is the room service they just ordered, but it is instructions for her next job. Her room is perfectly located for her to shoot the target. She goes to the bathroom pretending to take a bath, and as she prepares the rifle, Marco tries to talk to her through the door. The instructions about her target take longer than expected and she cannot answer him. She finally shoots her target but barely conceals the rifle before Marco walks in, against her wishes. Nikita is distraught that her work has caused them difficulties.
Still, her career as an assassin goes well until a document-theft mission in an embassy goes awry. Back in Paris, the Centre sends in Victor "The Cleaner", a ruthless operative, to salvage the mission and destroy all the evidence of the foul-up. When another operative is killed by Victor, Nikita is assigned to take his place. They nearly complete the mission before it backfires. Victor takes on a group of guards before being fatally wounded, but drives Nikita to safety before succumbing to his wounds.
Marco reveals that he has discovered Nikita's secret life, and, concerned over how her activities are affecting her psychologically, persuades her to disappear. Upon discovering that she has abandoned the Centre, Bob goes to their apartment and meets with Marco. When Bob says that Nikita is at risk because she still has the documents taken from the embassy, Marco hands them over. The two men agree that they will both miss Nikita.
