Generally, it is a safe bet to assume that a hitman is a bad guy. Generally, anyone who can kill strangers for money is heartless, not like you or I – and that’s true in cinema (for the most part) – hitman enter, hitman kill, hitman leave. Generally, that is the role in a movie these killers hold. But not in Léon. And that difference makes French director Luc Besson’s American debut incredible and incredibly intriguing.
Common collaborator of Besson’s, Jean Reno, is Léon, and Léon is a hitman, though he prefers the title “cleaner.” If a rival encroaches into your territory, won’t listen to reason, and you want them gone, Léon is the man that makes it happen. He initiates changes of mind. He doesn’t negotiate – in fact, he rarely speaks, and when he does, nothing more than a confused dribble seeps from his mouth. Intimidation is his first language.
But aside from that, Léon doesn’t have a lot going for him – it seems as though there is not much happening in his life outside of work (unless you count the plant he tends to everyday, which I don’t).
Of course, that will all change.
Set in New York City, in a crime-filled Little Italian neighborhood, this is the story of a damned man reincarnated by the love of one little girl. The girl, Mathilda (a genuine interpretation by the then twelve-year-old Natalie Portman), is a damaged individual whose entire family was gunned down by the crooked cop Stansfield (Gary Oldman). But when Léon saves her from the crooks, she’s only upset about her 4-year-old brother, and not so much about the others – she admits that if someone else hadn’t beaten her to the punch, she probably would have killed the others herself. And when she finds out Léon is a cleaner, she isn’t shocked, she instead puts her mind to becoming one too.
Léon reluctantly keeps her around, and predictably, as he teaches his protégée the art of the kill, Mathilda, in return, fills in the torturous holes in his life, exposing the assassin’s gentler side, and giving him a reason to live. Reno’s slick and sometimes clueless performance is integral in keeping their unconventional relationship afloat; if he were to act any differently, Léon and Mathilda’s compatibility would be much too sappy.
As Mathilda’s eager rapidly grows, Léon finds himself put into a strange situation in which he must find a way to take care of the girl while keeping his operation running smoothly. He manages to do so, incorporating Portman into his plans by letting her become his “voice” (in one case, she bargains a hotel manager to let them stay in a room while holding onto their violin case, which has a weapon in it, even though instruments are against building protocol. And then for the actual hits, Mathilda is the one that lures the targets to open their doors). She interacts with people the way Léon cannot.
Meanwhile, Mathilda still wants to avenge her brother. This keeps Oldman in the mix (smart, because he keeps the film alive with his excellent portrayal). The pill-popping Stansfield is maniacal, wicked, and worst of all, smart. You don’t want to interrupt him when he is listening to his music, a henchman warns us. Stansfield relates everything he does to classical music, and as a result, his character becomes incalculably creepy, and when the camera zooms in on him, you can’t help but want to turn away.
Simply put, Besson has put an entertaining spin on an old tale. This is as exciting as this kind of a story can be – much more entertaining that Besson’s previous work, La Femme Nikita, another story about a girl becoming a killer. But for a film highlighting assassins and featuring such multitudes of gore, Léon is a particularly easy and pleasant watch.
