amplizine.com

Archive for March, 2006

Who knew cleaning could be so fun?!

Oh Leon, you middle man in the Luc Besson trio, how you entertain! You may not be as French as Nikita or as Bruce as Korben, but you make up for it in your milk bingeing, plant loving, badass-ness. Who else could make hundreds of SWAT guys crap themselves in fear (excluding Richard Simmons and Chuck Norris that is)? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you need to see this movie (or maybe I need to see a psychiatrist). Leon the Professional is a must see that will give you a greater appreciation for all of Luc Besson’s movies. Warning: this movie may be addictive and has been known by the state of California to cause repeated quotations of “Uhhhhhhhhh.” I guess you’ll just have to see it to understand.

Plot Summary

Leon (Jean Reno) is a hitman. The best one you ever thought you saw. It turns out you didn’t actually see him because he was too busy killing you to be seen. After a solid days work, he returns to his New York City apartment where an abused and neglected neighbor girl called Mathilda (Natalie Portman) tries to befriend him. Her family is rotten to her except her little brother that she deeply cares for, and when her father’s drug dealings with a crooked cop named Stansfield (Gary Oldman) ends in blood, only Mathilda survives through Leon’s reluctant help. He is a strange man, unaccustomed to social interaction especially with little girls, but displays tenderness through his love of his houseplant and attempts to cheer Mathilda with an oven mitt. Mathilda discovers that not only does Leon have a healthy appetite for milk, but he is also a professional “cleaner.” When Leon won’t accept her job of getting revenge for her murdered brother, she convinces him to teach her the ropes of being a cleaner. He breaks all of his own rules in taking her under his wing, and the two develop a loving relationship filled with plenty of awkward moments. Eventually Mathilda tries to take revenge into her own hands by killing Stansfield, but she fails miserably. Leon rescues her, placing them both in great danger and a fantastic gun battle. In the finale, wanting a better life for Mathilda and finally reflecting the love she has shown for him, Leon sacrifices himself to save her.

Acting

What sets this movie apart from other Besson films is the character development. So richly detailed and complete are the characters that you can’t ignore the power of the acting. I gotta love the Portman (not to be confused with the port man, that was a one-time thing and just an accident–I swear!). It’s so hard to believe this is her first motion picture! Jean Reno is amazing. I don’t even want to go into too much detail because you should just see it for yourself. That, and I can’t say enough about it, so why even try? Gary Oldman I do want to talk more about though. How does one man make crazy look so good? He makes every villain in all the thrillers in the world look like Barney when he pops some pills and tweaks his neck. That top-down camera angle on him will forever haunt my brain, sorta like the blood oozing from his forehead in The Fifth Element. His performance is so spectacular–I’ve even seen cheap rip-offs of that moment in other movies.

Visual/Audio

Cinematography is noteworthy, but I can’t think of anything truly impressive visually or audio-wise. Besson’s favorite Eric Serra did the soundtrack again, but I’m not particularly impressed with this score. Overall, there is nothing bad to say here, but it is a decent piece of work.

Conclusion

If you enjoy a riveting story, action, or even a little too much milk, you MUST see this movie. While I love all Luc Besson movies, I happen to like The Fifth Element slightly more and can’t bring myself to give both movies 5s. So here we are at the end of the review, ready to give the final rating–but I just realized I didn’t once quote “Uhhhhhhh,” leaving you bewildered and questioning my sanity. Well question away while I shit myself and give Leon the Professional

4 “Uhhhhhhh”s out of 5

Some Tidbits o’ Trivia

• After watching this movie my second time, I noticed a neat Besson trademark: the three movies “La Femme Nikita,” “Leon The Professional,” and “The Fifth Element” all open with the same visual, different colors. You have to watch them to see what I mean.
• During the filming involving all of the police cars on the street, a man ran from a store he had just robbed. When he encountered the movie set by accident, he saw all of the “police” and gave himself up to a bunch of uniformed extras.
• Liv Tyler was considered for the part of Mathilda but was deemed too tall at the time.
• The potted plant Leon nurtures, and which Matilda replants at the end of the movie, is an aglaonema, pronounced “ag-leon-ema”.