Leon: The Professional Film Review by KD

Not exactly sure what i'll acheive at this but I love this film and figured i'd kill some time by reviewing it, in a slightly different way from other reviews ive read. Cheers.

Leon: The Professional – Review
Leon is in my humble opinion one of the most underrated and un seen movies of the past few years, almost none of my friend circle having seen or even heard of it and yet being so star studded and critically acclaimed I think is a great tragedy. Being one of my most watched films, this review is going to be a long and rambling dissection of one of my favourite films of recent memory.

Now I am done with that little rant onto the review, firstly the direction by Luc Besson is first class, the camera moves swiftly during the films action scenes and gives a modern edge to what is fundamentally quite a talky and confined film developing the broken relationship between a seemingly mentally handicapped hit man (Jean Reno) and the young girl who lives down the hall of their squalid New York apartment building, Mathilda (Introducing Natalie Portman) and the story which ensures after lunatic DEA agent Norman Stansfield (Among Gary Oldman’s best roles) off’s her whole family for seemingly stealing 10% of a stash of Cocaine Mathilda’s father was holding for Stan and thus follows a tale of love, revenge and ultimate tragedy for all involved to summarise without not giving all away.

Besson moves the film forward and never lets the audience get bored, even during the talky scenes between Leon and Mathilda as the well written script ratchets up the awkward sexual tension between the aging hitman and the young woman but of course nothing happens, everything is kept to a acceptable level, and there are multiple versions of this film, the American cut which removes a good 20 minutes of the films story a directors and European cuts, I recommend the European cut, the original film the American audiences somehow found offensive.

The film smartly begins by introducing each main character in their own separate scene, first of it is Leon as he is introduced a ghost, a unstoppable force who seemingly dodges bullets and in doing so and always gets the job done, this opening sequence could really be its own film it is that good with an excellent use of shadows and super high styling puts this opening fire fight among the best action scenes I’ve seen with plenty screenshot moments, this sequence is fairly short, not overstaying its welcome and introducing what it is Leon does and how well he does it while dealing with a certain “Fat man”.

Following Leon’s introduction we are introduced to the household of Mathilda, living with her scum father, step mother and irritating older sister, overall a fairly dysfunctional (not in the typical cartoon, sitcom way) and abusive family, Mathilda being picked on by all parties and only finding comfort in her beloved, silent little brother, letting us know that they only have each other in a otherwise dire environment to live in.

Next up is the character I have decided is my favourite movie villain and possibly by favourite role by Gary Oldman, we are given the scene, Leon passes Mathilda in the hall way and enters his flat. Mathilda’s father and a overweight cop leave an apartment and argue over some missing cocaine he was storing, in the close background is a greasy haired, suit wearing man moving his head slightly to the Beethoven playing in his headphones, after much denying by Mathilda’s father Stan turns round with a look on his face which has to be seen and begins to sniff, hug and terrify in the space of around 30 seconds before leaving past the smoking on a staircase Mathilda and has already set the idea that this guys a tad mental and Oldman plays it perfectly with enough little gestures, eccentric quotes and nuances to run the line between dangerous sociopath and pantomime villain but more on that later.

Next up I need to comment on the superb acting from the whole cast, most importantly this film is a brilliant achievement for Jean Reno (a actor in many other Besson films) who plays a character who in any other film would probably be seen as the villain due to his dirty work for a dirty local Mafioso Tony (Danny Aiello) but it’s the sympathetic way Leon is portrayed out of action which really defines the character as a man who is isolated from any real human companionship, stopped developing emotionally at around the age of 15 but still manages to enjoy the company of his house plant and old Gene Kelly musicals but we realise how broken he is as a human;, he sleeps sitting up, will only drink milk and exercises meticulously, and cannot read or write, he lives his life under a strict moral code “No women, no kids” and basically is very child like, before he meets Mathilda. “No women, No kids, that’s the rules”.

Next up, first timer to the silver screen is Natalie Portman, in what is arguably her best role to date, even though she’s been in countless excellent films as of recently, the way Mathilda contrasts with the cliché, cry on demand, clever remark filled cutesy kids Hollywood dishes out every year as a incredibly mature actor and she portraits a very broken, dark and vengeful 14 year old out for revenge on the men who killed her family and she pulls of the role perfectly as Mathilda begins to fall in love(or so she thinks) with Leon, while he does all he can to deflect (but not hurt her feelings)as well as becoming a mini assassin and the transition is done rather well, there is very little to criticise about this performance so I won’t bother as this role outshines the work in the fairly rubbish Star wars prequels. “They killed my brother”.

Gary “EVERYONEEE” Oldman, like I mentioned earlier plays a bizarre character who is a renegade cop who makes Dirty Harry look like a role model cop, it’s amazing this guy gets away with so much and you begin to wonder about the characters history (how he achieved such power and influence on those around him) and personal life, we are given no scenes beyond what is necessary to push the story forward of Stan in his apartment, does he have a family, friends, social life, does he have reasoning behind his seemingly odd behaviour, one thing is for sure and this is Mr.Oldman nails the character to the point I couldn't imagine anyone else taking on this role, this is a master class in movie villainy and although many other film critics will argue this to be one of Oldman’s worse roles and describe his acting as hammy and ‘chewing the scenery’ I think it just adds to how enjoyable it is to watch Oldman do his thing and hell, it got me routing for the bad guy more than the good guys, there is clearly a lot of improvisation in this role, talk of Beethoven (Possibly making reference to Alex DeLarge of Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange or making a clever fan reference as Oldman was also filming for Immortal Beloved in which he played, you guessed it, Beethoven) as I read of lot of interviews from cast and crew a number of scenes the extras did not work on time so Oldman filled in time by rambling nonsense for the camera, during the early apartment scene where Stan meets Mathilda’s father with open arms (after wasting his entire family) and then begins to play the invisible piano and suggest classical artists was not originally in the script and I can only praise Oldman for having fun with the character and not sticking to the script (probably why he got picked up in Besson’s Fifth element as the lead villain). The only issues I have with this performance is that Oldman occasionally drops his American accent for a more British one, see the monologue in the bathroom scene where he interrogates Mathilda and you’ll see the accent change slightly “It’s only when you become really afraid of death that you learn to appreciate life”, “Bring me everyone” “I looove Mozart, he was Austrian you know?” “I take no pleasure in taking life, if it is from a person who doesn’t appreciate it” this guy in incredibly quotable.

Before I forget, Tony, Leon’s seemingly only friend, or so he says so, dispenses hits to Leon to complete for a tidy $5000 a head and of course holds onto the money himself, Leon doesn’t seem to care much, and various scenes throughout the film Tony defends he has all of Leon’s money and that he can take it whenever he wants, but of course we all have a suspicion whether he is just using Leon and keeping the massive income for himself while giving Leon small amounts of money to spend on necessities and of course weapons, Leon lies all trust in Tony suggesting good enough reason for Tony to abuse Leon’s innocence.

Another important part of the film, I hope this is intentionally done by Besson is that the play on both Leon and Stansfield, who only share around 20 seconds of screen time together and yet the two most important forces in the whole film, the thing I found interesting is that almost every interior scene is beige or a warm colour, the apartment interiors, the hallways, the police bathroom, all the same colour, but why? Because it is the colour of the suit always worn by Stan, look at these scenes and he could blend into the background if he stayed still for a second and importantly, in traditional cinema (ala westerns) the good guy always wore the light clothing, but in this film it is indeed Leon who enjoys the darker scenes and usually is seen wearing dark clothing which may be suggesting he is just as bad as Stan, because coming down to figures Stansfield only kills 4 people during the course of the film, Leon kills quite a lot of people, anyone he’s assigned to kill, the small time drug dealer he used to help Mathilda train as well as cops, who are seemingly good guys who are lied to by Stansfield that Leon is a big threat to public safety.

Another interesting element is that Mathilda, once welcomed into Leon’s apartment talks about her hatred for her family, besides her brother, for whom she swears revenge on Stansfield for, but if you paid attention the brother is the only member of the family not killed by Stan, but by ‘Stansfield man 1’ or ‘Blood’ the cop with the dreadlocks who guns down the boy with his sub machine gun when he makes a dash for the door, Stansfield being distracted by poor old dads meagre escape attempt so in fact Stan killed only those whom Mathilda says she would have killed sooner or later anyways and I found this quite a clever quip from Besson.

Without wanting to cut the review short, I also don’t want to ruin the climax to the film by getting to in-depth about the beautifully directed and emotionally heartbreaking ending and the final fire fight with the cops I can only fully recommend this film to everyone(yes in playing on the Stansfield quote again) and whatever cut is up to you, depending on if you want to avoid the awkward scenes between Leon & Mathilda, this film manages to successfully cover a wide range of topics and theme’s from anger, grief, isolation, greed to love, humour and relationships which covering film genre’s from romance, thriller and action without feeling disjointed or forced this film flows very naturally and all the sets are made good use of, the very European style talking scenes work surprisingly well with the stylish and slick gun fights and ‘training’ scenes, the film spends enough time in each location without letting the audience get bored, fully recommended.

9.5/10