Léon

Genre: Action/Drama
Year of release: 1994
Director: Luc Besson

Hmm, I loved this movie, however it defiantly flawed in some places. This movie really triumphs in some places but can also be rather average in others. This is one of those classic examples of the people loving it and the critics hating it. Gary Oldman is awesome I must say and Jean Reno is pretty good too although everyone else is well, meh.

This movie is about a young girl and a hitman who come together after being neighbors when this young girls family is killed by some crocked policemen after her father some how changes his 100% coke into only 90% whilst this is happening Mathilda is shopping for food, when she comes back her family are dead and she seeks aid from her hitman next door neighbor. Mathilda is then inspired to learn to be a Hitman to seek revenge and Léon teachers her. After a while this 12 year old girl Mathilda falls in love with Léon, does he love her back, you decide.

This movie wins for me as the action is great and Oldman and Reno have great characters and are great actors. However Natalie Portman as Mathilda and some of the other actors were pretty bad. The love story in this is pretty weird and it is awkward to watch a young girl think she is in love with an oldish man, I like to believe that Léon only loves her in a father type of way as I think it would be wrong and slightly disgusting if it were in a sexual way, I am not sure of Léon feeling however as there are many shots to suggest that he is tempted by her, for me this point does not bring the movie down too much though and hardly matters.

Léon is a great character he is a lonely sort of shy Italian hitman who can not read or talk very well. His character at the same time is very bad ass and the ideas of killing people in this movie are fantastic. Léon has one friend his plant, I thought this to be cool he liked it as it did not ask any questions. I love how Léon struggles to reach out even though he job would suggest he would not be a timid and to him self type of person, so in a way it is breaking a hitman stereotype. Mathilda definite changes Léon. She helps him with his reading and she brings him out of his shell a little. The character change is not bad however it will never compete in the changes of characters like in the Godfather, Schindler's list or the Treasure of Sierra Madre.

Gary Oldman plays Stansfeild a corrupt cop into selling drugs and killing people. His character is awesome a very scary and insane bad guy that would get placed on my list of favorite bad guys. The famous scene in the bathroom was acted out wonderfully and gives you the goosebumps. The way he likes classical music is cool the same way it is cool in A Clockwork Orange however not quite as good as that, the references to the music is quite small in this. The way in which this character took his medication was weird if it is real then it is pretty good, I have my doubts however, you get left with the feeling that they made it like this just to make it look cool, which is stupid. I think it is a good idea to have the character take some sort of medication as he is clearly insane, I just think it unrealistic and over the top that it effects him straightaway and he always cracks his back after taking it.

Mathilda, well she is a child and has it is in a way an excuse to act badly. I don't like Natalie Portman so I have seen hardly any of her movies, she did a better job in this than in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Her character was strange a lonely girl who did not care about her parents and sister being killed, but was devastated that they killed her 4 year old brother. It is believable that she did not care about her parents before they were killed as they beat her and did not look like the coolest of parents, its is also believable that she hated her sister who was an exercise freak who hated Mathilda and hogged the t.v however after they were killed I found it strange she did not care at all about them I am not saying I don't believe it at all just I would think that she is still slightly a human being even after all the shit she probably went through. I think her character could have been much better and that it gets a little annoying, I enjoyed her impersonating Madona, Marylin Monroe and Charlie Chaplin and Léon John Wayne was funny.

The action in this is amazing very smart and very exciting. Some people think it is over the top however I say fuck you you are dumb. The action in this is some of the best up there with every thing else like Die Hard. The first action scene of this movie is good however I did not like too much because the acting was bad from everyone except Jean Reno who is not in the scenes very much at all, this scene could have been one of the best scenes in history however just drops bad from the overacting. Brings it back up when Reno is at the end of this scene, that bit kicked ass.

Inconclusion I can see how the critics don't like it and I see how the people love it. Léon is in my opinion one of the best action films ever could have been much better. The acting was good from only Jean Reno and Gary Oldman and some of the small things that happened were over the top also had some strange mistakes. Great movie no classic though.

8/10