Léon: The Professional
Léon: The Professional
R | 18 November 1994 (USA)
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Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.

Reviews
Btexxamar

I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

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Holstra

Boring, long, and too preachy.

Patience Watson

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

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Hattie

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

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ashington-20993

Im not going to go into detail about Leon, for those who haven't seen this legend of a movie.Stick it on sit down and enjoy, and you will enjoy trust me.

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Anonymous002

I usually don't like stylish action movies but this one is different. The film catches viewer's complete attention in just 25 minutes. After that , the storyline proceeds gradually . Till end we develop a kind of love for that character Leon(Or maybe pity on Mathilda) . It is a character whose death hurted me the most . While watching , I was praying for this life . All characters are written very well. Whole film is well written , well directed and brilliantly acted. But , this film left some questions unanswered.First question is about Gary Oldman's character (Stanfield). How does he enjoy so much power in New York police . He is in drug department and not in the police. Second and even bigger question , who were the people that they killed during the practice. Were they normal people , very unlikely . But if they were enemies , how was stansfield unaware of it. Even if I ignore these points , this film still is not perfect . Middle part of the movie was a little boring . All that happened is Mathilda confessed her love for Leon . Don't know how many times . So much time is wasted on this rather than building some storyline. Overall an entertaining film.

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Kmb_the_Nepali_reviewer

It is one of the most overrated movies of all times. I don't mean it's bad, but it's not as great as people claim it to be. It is a good and a little different type of crime drama. But, speaking of 90s crime dramas and mob films, "Goodfellas", "Pulp Fiction", "The Usual Suspects", "Se7en", "Reservoir Dogs", etc are much better than this movie, at least for me. But still a lot better majority of crime movies today. The main theme - the relationship between Leon and Mathilda - mostly satisfying and very well written and directed. That is something I really loved. But at the same time, a part of that relationship is quite a mixed bag for me. (SPOILERS) Mathilda falls in love with Leon and asks him for intimacy. As much as I admire Besson's decision, it feels unusually weird. Plus, Natalie Portman was just around 12 or 13 years old, and there were some perverted shots of her in the movie that I didn't really want to see. The Leon-Mathilda plotline, except for this part, was quite good. And which means almost more than a half of the movie was good. Mathilda becoming a hitman plotline - the motivation felt a little forced to me, her training sessions were finely entertaining but ..... where and how did it really end? More than becoming a real hitman (probably she did in the montage sequence) we only get to see her do some crazy teenager stuffs. And, one of my biggest issues - Mathilda wanting a revenge on Stan plotline. It would have been a better movie if this one and the first plotline I mentioned were equally a major part of the movie. But, the movie deviates from this a lot. We get reminded about this part when Gary Oldman shows up. This was one of the main parts of the plot, but didn't really feel like one. Also, Stan is a simple crazy psycho-ish villain with nothing much of depth to him. The first plotline worked for me in the way it did, mostly because of the amazing performances of Jean Reno and Natalie Portman. They were very great. Leon was written very carefully. And ........ Gary Oldman ......... I love the man as an actor, he is amazing in most of the his movies I have watched. May be his performances in "Darkest Hour" and as Commissioner Gordon in Dark Knight Trilogy are my favorite Gary Oldman performances. I haven't seen all of his movies, but this is by far the worst Gary Oldman performance I have ever seen. A part of it is to be blamed on Besson, but nothing can be taken away from Oldman. He simply hams up the performance. On the whole, it's a very enjoyable movie and has it's goods and has it's flaws. Not bad at all. It's good. But it feels like hypocrisy to have this movie as the 30th highest rated movie on IMDb. It gets a "B" and a "6.7/10".

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The Movie Diorama

Safe to say this film has spawned many iterations of omnipotent invincible hitmen, it isn't hard to see why. Opening to a lukewarm reception, Léon has rapidly garnered cult status and is a firm favourite amongst film aficionados. A young girl's family is brutally gunned down by a crooked detective, she teams up with a hitman named Léon in order to avenge their deaths. Suffice to say this is an action drama that needs to be viewed by everyone...and I mean "EVERYONEEEE!". It would be easy to class this as an exaggerative over-the-top action thrill ride, but it's so much more than that. Thanks to Besson's Parisian directing style, he focussed his attention to the quirky original relationship between Léon and Mathilda. A girl who has experienced the dark side of life, growing up with a father who deals drugs and regularly hooking up with women. To then be embraced by a determined yet warming hitman, her idyllic fantasy of a caring father figure becomes reality. The bond that rapidly forms between these two characters is fascinating to watch. Her idolisation for him and his protectiveness for her. It's a union that shouldn't work, but does. They both teach each other aspects of life they aren't necessarily familiar with, which furthers the intricate character development. Acting was terrific from everyone. Reno's commanding titular performance encapsulated the screen. Portman's debut is quite possibly the best child performance I've seen. And then there's Oldman as the crazed antagonist, who steals every scene. Whilst this is absolutely entertaining, there are obvious issues. The plot is too thin to carry the full runtime, it takes far too much time developing the character relationship where the actual plot feels neglected, leaving the antagonist on the sideline until the third act. Also the music choice occasionally didn't fit the bustling urban environment and took me out of the film. Aside from those points, it's considerably better than most crime dramas and has aged impeccably well. Everyone needs a Léon in their life.

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