My Favourite Movies: Leon

Leon (played by Jean Reno) is a ruthless killer – an assassin or ‘cleaner’ as he is euphemistically known. He is emotionless, highly focused and totally deadly. Living in a run-down apartment block in New York he witnesses a hit next door when operatives from the DEA led by a crazed officer know only as Stansfield (played in his usual menacing over-the-top fashion by Gary Oldman). The only survivor of the bloodbath is the 12 year old Mathilda (played exceptionally by the young Natalie Portman) who walks past the carnage and begs to be let into Leon’s apartment. Torn between his need for anonymity and his feelings for another person – a child – in distress he opens the door and lets her in. Little did he know that by doing so he will start the road to becoming a better person, a more emotional and loving person but also a road leading to bloody violence as Leon begins to teach Mathilda the basics of ‘cleaning’ so that she can revenge herself on the men who killed her baby brother in cold blood.

I am a huge fan of both the director (Luc Besson) and main actor in this film. The combination of Besson and Jean Reno was, for me, a definite must see. When I first went along I obviously had no idea who Natalie Portman was but I would have been in very good company as this was her first major outing then aged 13. Clearly I thought, this girl has very great potential. Even with the lack of experience she almost stole scenes from both Reno and Oldman. That’s quite something for someone that young! Of course Reno is the star of the film – Oldman just plays Oldman and is in many ways practically disposable – it is his character that grows, his character that is the focus of the film and his character who starts to believe that there is something more to life than being an efficient killer and drinking lots of milk. Of course being about a man in a violent profession the movie contains its fair share of violence but I don’t think it really deserves its 18 certificate (on my DVD anyway). The violence is over pretty quickly and, generally, there isn’t buckets of blood thrown around. I suppose that it was the casual nature of some of the violence and the fact that some of the victims were women and children – something that the character Leon takes particular offence over. But you shouldn’t let that put you off. Today’s films are far more violent than even those made 5 or 10 years ago (although that’s not exactly a good trend nor is it a recommendation) so you should be able to cope with it. Focus instead on the story and the character development, something quite rare in movies these days.