A real killer of a movie
LEON is a strange - but wonderful - mix of French and American cinema. Released in the US as The Professional, this film is directed by Luc Besson (Subway, Nikita ) and stars Jean Reno (Les Visiteurs ), Gary Oldman and Danny Aiello. It's set in New York and the dialogue is in English, but it may as well have been shot on the banks of the Seine for all it absorbs of American culture.
Which somehow works to make Leon even more attractive. Even though he moved to America to make his first English-language picture, Besson is still a distinctive 'French' director, both in theme and execution; this is a film no other director working in America today could have made.
For a start, it's far too controversial. Leon (Jean Reno) is a 'cleaner', or professional assassin. He leads an isolated, watchful existence - which is rudely interrupted by his 12-year-old Lolita-like neighbour, Mathilde (Natalie Portman).
When Mathilde's whole family is murdered by renegade Drug Enforcement Agency officers led by the sinister Stansfield (Gary Oldman), Leon reluctantly takes the provocative Mathilde in. He falls in love with her and, at her urging, starts to give her lessons in 'cleaning'. Leon's relationship with Mathilde spirals out of control when she decides to exact her own revenge on the DEA and his 'cleaning' becomes emotionally charged.
Leon is very like Nikita in its sleek, high-voltage depiction of a murderous underworld. American producers tried to remake Nikita into The Assassin (also called Point of No Return ) starring Bridget Fonda, but failed utterly to reproduce Besson's chic amorality. They fell into the trap of trying to justify and sanitise the characters, but Leon refuses to intimate that Leon's relationship with Mathilde is anything other than off-limits.
Jean Reno is superb as the lonely, socially inept assassin, and Gary Oldman delivers one of his marvellously over-the-top performances as the psychotic DEA officer. Natalie Portman is suitably provocative as the pre-adolescent Mathilde, and Besson directs with his usual flair for the unusual. Leon is an oddity, a blend of violent French sentiments in American settings - which can often be distracting.