Léon: The Professional (1994) by Luc Besson

’Léon: The Professional’’ is an American-French thriller movie directed and written by the famous French director Luc Besson. The film was made in English originally and released in 1994. The film tells the story of a professional assassin (Leon) who saves a young girl (Mathilda) whose family gets killed during a police raid by the corrupt DEA agent Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman).

The professional assassin Leon (played by Jean Reno) is living an isolated life in an apartment in New York’s Little Italy. He works for a Mafioso called Tony who operates from an Italian restaurant. Leon seems to be really good at his job and is occupied with almost nothing else other than his work. He just works out at home, takes care of a houseplant which he refers to as his ‘best friend’ and drinks milk.  One day, the father of the family next door raises suspicions from some corrupt DEA agents who have been paying him to stock cocaine in his apartment. When they find out some of the cocaine is missing they kill all the family members except the 12 year-old Mathilda (Natalie Portman) who had been out shopping. Leon gives shelter to Mathilda who wants him to teach him his hitman skills to take revenge for the death of his little brother. In exchange, Mathilda teaches Leon how to read, cleans his apartment and runs errands for him. In the end, Leon gets killed by Stansfield while trying to protect Mathilda from them, however manages to take Stansfield with him to the other side as well, and leaves his money to Mathilda who gave him ‘a taste of life’.

            Leon: The Professional, as many know, is a cult movie. I see this movie as a movie about the power of love (not sexual or romantic love necessarily) but there are many other themes as well, like the power of education or prejudices. I really enjoyed the cinematography and the 90s atmosphere in Little Italy. Other than that, I really liked the rich and realistic outcast characters, Leon and Mathilda, the story development came from them rather than relying on action. You can easily empathize with both. Furthermore, I think Jean Reno fitted the character Leon perfectly, and I believe all in his other movies his characters are similar to Leon in some way, Wasabi or Tais Toi are some examples. Although some might have found some scenes disturbing or some parts of the film uncomfortable, I liked the emotions that the film made me feel.