Léon (film)

Léon
Léon: The Professional
Official promotional poster
Directed by Luc Besson
Produced by Patrice Ledoux
Written by Luc Besson
Starring Jean Reno
Gary Oldman
Natalie Portman
Danny Aiello
Music by Éric Serra
Cinematography Thierry Arbogast
Editing by Sylvie Landra
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Gaumont Film Company
Release date(s) France:14 September 1994
United States: 18 November 1994
Running time Theatrical cut:
110 minutes
Director's cut
133 minutes
International cut:
136 minutes
Country France
Language English
Budget $16 million[1]
Gross revenue $45,284,974[1][2]

Léon (also known as The Professional and Léon: The Professional) is a French English-language 1994 action film written and directed by French director Luc Besson. It stars Jean Reno as an aging mob hitman, Gary Oldman as a psychotic police drug squad detective, and a young Natalie Portman, in her feature film debut, as a young girl who is taken in by the hitman after her family is murdered by corrupt police agents.

Contents

Plot

Leone "Léon" Montana (Jean Reno) is a hitman (or "cleaner", as he refers to himself) living a solitary life in New York City's Little Italy. Most of his work comes from a mafioso named Tony (Danny Aiello), who operates from the "Supreme Macaroni Company" restaurant. Léon spends his idle time engaging in calisthenics, nurturing a houseplant that early on he describes as his "best friend",[3] and (in one scene) watching old Gene Kelly musicals.

On a particular day on his way home, he sees Mathilda Lando (Natalie Portman), a twelve-year-old girl with a black eye and smoking a cigarette, living with her dysfunctional family in an apartment down the hallway. Mathilda's father (Michael Badalucco) attracts the ire of corrupt DEA agents, who have been paying him to store cocaine in his residence, after they discover that he has been stealing some of the drugs for himself. A cadre of DEA agents storm the building, led by a sharp-suited and drug-addicted Norman "Stan" Stansfield (Gary Oldman), who murders Mathilda's entire family, missing her only because she was out shopping when they arrived. When she returns with the groceries she was sent to buy and notices the carnage, she calmly continues down the hallway past the open door of her family's apartment, and receives sanctuary from a reluctant Léon.

Mathilda, who soon discovers that Léon is a hitman, begs him to become her caretaker, and to teach her his skills as a "cleaner": she wants to avenge the murder of her four-year-old brother, the only member of her family that she actually loved. Léon shows her how to use firearms, including a scoped-up sniper rifle. In return, she offers her services as a maid and teacher, remedying Léon's illiteracy. Léon hesitantly accepts her offer and the two begin working together. As they do so, Mathilda admits to Léon several times that she is falling in love with him, but he says nothing back.

As Mathilda increases her confidence and experience with firearms, she fills a shopping bag with guns from Léon's collection and sets out to kill Stansfield. She bluffs her way into the DEA office by posing as a delivery person, locates Stansfield, and follows him to his office in an attempt to kill him, only to be ambushed by Stansfield in a bathroom. Léon, discovering her intentions after reading a note left for him, rushes to the building and rescues Mathilda, shooting two of Stansfield's men in the process.

Stansfield is enraged that what he calls the "Italian hitman" has gone rogue and is killing his men. He confronts Tony and threatens him, coercing him into surrendering Léon's whereabouts. Later, as Mathilda returns home from grocery shopping, an NYPD ESU team, sent by Stansfield, takes her hostage and attempts to infiltrate Léon's apartment. Léon ambushes the ESU team and takes one of their members hostage, rapidly bartering him for Mathilda's freedom. As they slink back into the apartment, Léon creates a quick escape for Matilda by chopping a hole in a slender air shaft. As she prepares to slide down, he reassures her and tells her that he loves her, moments before the police come for him.

In the chaos that follows, Léon sneaks out of the apartment building disguised as a wounded ESU officer, almost unnoticed save for Stansfield who recognizes him and silently sneaks up and shoots him from behind. Looming over the dying Léon, Stansfield jeers him haughtily. However just before he gives out, Léon places an object in Stansfield's hands, which he explains is "from Mathilda". Opening his hands, Stansfield recognizes it as the pin from a grenade and rips open Léon's vest to discover several grenades on his chest. A massive explosion destroys them both.

Mathilda heads to Tony's place as she was instructed to do by Léon. Tony will not give Mathilda more than a small amount of the fortune Léon had amassed, which was being held by Tony. His reasoning is that she is not old enough to receive the large amount of money (only allowing her a monthly allowance) and that school should be her priority until she's older. When Mathilda asks Tony to give her a 'job', and insists that she can 'clean' as Léon had, Tony sternly informs her that he 'ain't got no work for a 12-year-old kid!' Having nowhere else to go, she is then seen going to Roosevelt Island using the Roosevelt Island Tramway to return to school. Seemingly readmitted to the school, Mathilda walks into a field in front of it with Léon's houseplant in hand, she digs a hole and plants the houseplant in the grounds of the school, as she had told Léon he should, "to give it roots."

Léon & Mathilda's apartment building on the northwest corner of E 97th St & Park Ave (February 2005)

Cast

Production

Léon is to some extent an expansion of an idea in Besson's earlier film, Nikita (1990), in which Jean Reno played a similar character named Victor. Besson described Léon as "Now maybe Jean is playing the American cousin of Victor. This time he's more human."[4]

While most of the interior footage was shot in France, the rest of the film was shot on location in New York City.[5]

Critical response

The film was well-received critically and commercially. On Rotten Tomatoes the film is "certified fresh" with an aggregate rating of 74% based on 38 reviews.[6]

Some aspects of the film were criticized. Roger Ebert offered a mostly positive review, but wrote: "Always at the back of my mind was the troubled thought that there was something wrong about placing a 12-year-old character in the middle of this action." "In what is essentially an exercise—a slick urban thriller—it seems to exploit the youth of the girl without really dealing with it."[7] Gary Oldman's overstated performance as corrupt DEA officer Norman Stansfield divided critical opinion upon the film's release. Richard Schickel, for example, praised the performance as "divinely psychotic,"[8] while the Deseret News' Chris Hicks, one of its many detractors, called it "utterly ridiculous."[9] Mark Deming at Allmovie adopted a neutral stance, describing it as "a love-it-or-hate-it, over-the-top turn."[10] Director Luc Besson was pleased with the performance, leading to his hiring Oldman for 1997's The Fifth Element.[11] In 2002, Stansfield was ranked #43 in the Online Film Critics Society's "Top 100 Villains of All Time."

Versions

There is also a long version of the film, referred to as "international version" or "version intégrale". Containing 25 minutes of additional footage, it is sometimes called the "Director's Cut" but Besson refers to the original version as the Director's Cut and the new version as "The Long Version".[12]

According to Luc Besson, this is the version he wanted to release, but for the fact that the extra scenes tested poorly with L.A. preview audiences. The additional material is found in the film's second act, and it depicts more of the interactions and relationship between Léon and Mathilda, as well as explicitly demonstrating how Mathilda accompanies Léon on several of his hits as "a full co-conspirator," to further her training as a contract killer.[13]

The new scenes[14] include:

  1. Mathilda telling Leon she is 18 years old.
  2. Mathilda threatening to shoot herself playing Russian roulette if Leon doesn't teach her how to become a killer.
  3. Leon taking Mathilda to meet Tony.
  4. Leon and Mathilda hitting a drug dealer's home, with Mathilda setting fire to his supply of drugs with rubbing alcohol.
  5. A montage of training missions where Mathilda learns the ropes of becoming an assassin.
  6. Leon and Matilda celebrating her first hit at a restaurant, where she gets drunk.
  7. Leon explaining why he left Italy and went to New York at the age of 19.
  8. Mathilda asking Leon to be her lover (with Leon refusing, saying "I wouldn't be a very good lover").
  9. Mathilda and Leon sleeping next to each other in a bed.

Léon: Version Intégrale was released in France in 1996; in the U.S. it was released on DVD as Léon: The Professional in 2000. Both versions contain the additional footage.[15]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Léon". http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1994/0PROF.php. Retrieved 2010-04-04. 
  2. ↑ "The Professional". http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=professional.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-04. 
  3. ↑ He May Be a Killer, But He's Such a Sweetie, a November 1994 review of the film from The New York Times
  4. ↑ Besson, Luc. Léon: The Professional Uncut International Version DVD, inside sleeve.
  5. ↑ "Leon – The Professional filming locations". The Worldwide Guide To Movie Locations. 2008-06-18. http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/l/leon.html. 
  6. ↑ Léon the Professional at Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster Retrieved on 2008-04-28.
  7. ↑ "The Professional review by Roger Ebert
  8. ↑ Richard Schickel (2001-06-24). "Slice and Dice". http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,163382,00.html. 
  9. ↑ Chris Hicks (1994-11-22). "The Professional". Deseret News. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700001468/The-Professional.html.  1.5/4 stars
  10. ↑ Mark Deming. "The Professional review". Allmovie. http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-professional-133866. Retrieved 2010-06-09. 
  11. ↑ The Fifth Element, Deluxe edition, inlay notes.
  12. ↑ "The Guardian interview. Luc Besson". The Guardian. 2000-03-23. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2000/mar/23/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank1. 
  13. ↑ Lisa Nesselson (1996-07-29). "Leon: Version Integrale — The Professional (Director's Cut)". variety.com. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117911012.html. 
  14. ↑ Léon (1994) - Alternate versions new scenes listed at imdb.com
  15. ↑ "amctv.com". Movies.amctv.com. 2010-04-16. http://movies.amctv.com/movie/133866/Professional/details. Retrieved 2010-04-30. 

External links

Films directed by Luc Besson
1980s
The Last Battle (1983) • Subway (1985) • The Big Blue (1988)
1990s
Nikita (1990) • Léon (1994) • The Fifth Element (1997) • The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
2000s
Angel-A (2005) • Arthur and the Invisibles (2006) • Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard (2009)
2010s
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)