Sidney Poitier is damn good as FBI man Roy Parmenter trying to track down the Russian agent Scuba who not only killed his partner 20 years earlier but is now killing Russian sleepers (agents planted in foreign countries to live a normal life there until called upon to do something for their homeland, which could be years later or might never happen).

River Phoenix gives a very good performance for his age as Jeff "little Nikita" Grant, the son of two of the Russian sleepers born after they were set up in the USA. He's trying to join the US Air Force Academy where Parmenter works. Parmenter discovers the identity of his parents via computer records and things escalate from there.

Richard Bradford (of the old TV series "Man in a Suitcase"), by now somewhat larger and totally grey, does a good approximation of a Russian agent as Konstantin Karpov (which in fact would also have been a good approximation of a Russian political leader) trying to track down Scuba before he kills… more »

Sidney Poitier is damn good as FBI man Roy Parmenter trying to track down the Russian agent Scuba who not only killed his partner 20 years earlier but is now killing Russian sleepers (agents planted in foreign countries to live a normal life there until called upon to do something for their homeland, which could be years later or might never happen).

River Phoenix gives a very good performance for his age as Jeff "little Nikita" Grant, the son of two of the Russian sleepers born after they were set up in the USA. He's trying to join the US Air Force Academy where Parmenter works. Parmenter discovers the identity of his parents via computer records and things escalate from there.

Richard Bradford (of the old TV series "Man in a Suitcase"), by now somewhat larger and totally grey, does a good approximation of a Russian agent as Konstantin Karpov (which in fact would also have been a good approximation of a Russian political leader) trying to track down Scuba before he kills all the agents and arranging for Jeff's parents to be activated to be involved in the whole thing.

Whilst there are no complaints about the picture quality, regrettably the soundtrack is only stereo (stated as 2.1) but crank up your flat panel TV speakers in 3D or equivalent mode to a similar level to your surround system and you'll get a half-decent surround effect.

The film doesn't take itself too seriously and you never find out whether Jeff gets accepted in the Academy and, if so, how he does (a bit of a poor ending not tying up loose ends), but it's nevertheless a nice little espionage thriller.