Leon the Professional

Leon the Professional (1994) - 7/10

First Viewed: 4/3/08
Directed by Luc Besson
Starring Jean Reno as Leon, Natalie Portman as Mathilda, and Gary Oldman as Stansfield

Leon the Professional is a fun movie that begins with a stunning opening sequence where an almost super-human hitman named Leon blasts away a drug cartel's cohort of guards. After the film shows how Leon is a badass - another talent, in addition to his gunplay, is his ability to drink huge quantities of milk - he befriends a young girl, Mathilda (played very well by a very young Natalie Portman), whose family has been killed by Stansfield (Gary Oldman), a detective who has become involved in the drug trade.

What follows is a "modern" take on Paper Moon, where the killer Leon trains the intelligent Mathilda and vice versa, but with a subversive edge and cheesiness that only Luc Besson could provide. Like Besson's later film The Fifth Element, Leon the Professional has a strange mixture of comedy and brutal violence. This sometimes works to hilarious effect, but just as often fails. Gary Oldman's performance is a perfect example. Sometimes his deranged cop is wonderfully eccentric, much like Dennis Hopper's character in Blue Velvet, but Oldman plays the character so over-the-top, with random screams and a love for Beethoven, that it is often distracting.

Despite its relatively short running time, the film drags in the middle as the interplay between Mathilda and Leon grows old. This is a problem inherent in the plot itself; there are only so many times Mathilda can prove to be a resourceful girl in the face of danger. Perhaps recognizing these shortcomings, Besson unwisely introduces awkward subjects such as the possibility of pedophilia, a fascination with hitmen killing children, and skits involving - yes - a pig puppet and dressing up in costumes. These plot points, much like the film itself, are endearingly unconventional, but usually just flat-out weird.