Poor Man’s Taxi Driver. All of the ick, but it’s missing a ‘You talkin’ to me’ moment.
★★★★☆
Equal parts Lolita and Quentin Tarantino, Léon is a movie that keeps you feeling uncomfortable. The quick pitch is a hitman (Jean Reno) teams up with a preteen girl (Natalie Portman) who’s looking to learn his craft. At a high level, it’s easy to conflate Natalie Portman’s Mathilda with Hit Girl from Kick Ass or Roxy from God Bless America, but both of those characters exist in hyper violent Tarantino-esque comic book worlds. Mathilda’s world is the only thing not borrowed from the Tarantino universe. It is a little too real and there are too many consequences and that’s part one of what made me uncomfortable in this movie.
The other unnerving element comes from the relationship between the leads. It is HIGHLY suggested that Reno is in love with Natalie Portman’s character and she states as plainly that she loves him. I think Reno loves Portman [1]. I think he is conflicted about it. Confession time: I have not read or seen Lolita, but I think that if Leon had gone full on Humbert Humbert, it may have taken away some of the tension from Léon. Léon spends a good portion of the movie toeing a very dangerous line. But, because he never crossed it, I kept forgetting about it until he tip toed right back up to the edge. Unfortunately for me, other than his possible perversions, Leon fell a little flat, which is what keeps this movie from being great. His personality seems to be a series of quirks (all of which I find amusing) but he doesn’t feel real. That said, it’s a solid action film and Mathilda is a great character, and there is one more thing that I loved about this movie…
GARY. FUCKING. OLDMAN. I can’t believe I got this far without talking about Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman deserves to have his name all over this review. In fact, I’m gonna try and stick Gary Oldman’s name in here as much as I possibly can in these next few sentences. Gary Oldman. Ok, I don’t need to say much other than that Gary Oldman’s career is PACKED with characters I will never forget and Stansfield is just another. He chews each line that makes his villain equal parts repugnant and charismatic. Everything down to his yellow teeth is memorable. And, I can’t wait to bother my friends with ‘HE SAID GO BACK INSIDE’ out of context for years to come.
You can currently stream Léon: The Professional on Netflix.
1. I offer the following points as evidence. The first is that when Mathilda and Leon play Celebrity, I don’t think it is a coincidence that Mathilda dresses up as the two most sexualized icons of the last 50 years in Madonna and Marilyn Monroe. Secondly, watch Leon’s face at the end of this clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFWBJgirKfw) there is no reason to leave that moment in.
Next week, I’ve assigned David Headhunters. I love action movies that go above and beyond and become something greater. This movie is one of the all time great cat-and-mouse movies I’ve ever seen. It has the added benefit of being the highest grossing Norwegian film of all time, which is just a fun fact to bust out at parties (I don’t get invited to a lot of parties). Check back next Tuesday to read David’s review.
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