“Léon: The Professional”

Movie Review

French action thriller Léon: The Professional, also known as Leon in the UK, was produced in 1994 and was written and directed by Luc Besson. In addition to Gary Oldman and Jean Reno, Natalie Portman makes her acting debut. The story revolves around Léon, a professional hitman played by Jean Reno, who reluctantly takes in Mathilda Lando, 12, played by Natalie Portman, after the corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration agent Norman Stansfield, played by Gary Oldman, kills her family. Mathilda and Leon develop a strange bond as she becomes his protege and picks up his hitman skills.

Léon is an Italian hitman who works for "Old Tony," a mafioso in New York City's Little Italy district. A lonely 12-year-old named Mathilda Lando lives with her chaotic family in an apartment down the hall from Léon and has stopped showing up to her school for problematic girls, which is where Léon first meets her. Corrupt DEA officers are annoyed by Mathilda's aggressive father because they have been paying him to hide cocaine in his apartment. DEA agents raid the building after learning that he has been stealing the cocaine, led by their boss, the dapper drug addict Norman Stansfield. While Mathilda is out grocery shopping, Stansfield kills her family during the raid. Léon reluctantly offers Mathilda shelter as she returns, realizing what has happened just in time for her to proceed down the hall to his apartment.

Léon's status as a hitman is swiftly discovered by Mathilda. Because she wants to exact revenge on the person who killed her four-year-old brother, she begs him to look after her and teach her his talents. Léon is first disturbed by her presence and considers killing her while she's asleep, but he gradually instructs Mathilda in the use of numerous weapons. She cleans his apartment, helps him learn to read, and runs him errands in return. Léon is an inspiration to Mathilda, who immediately grows fond of him and frequently tells him she loves him but receives no response.

Mathilda fills a bag with guns from Léon's collection and sets out to kill Stansfield while Léon is on a job. She swindles her way into the DEA office by posing as a delivery girl, only to be ambushed in a bathroom by Stansfield. One of his men arrives and tells him that Léon murdered Malky, one of the corrupt DEA agents, that morning in Chinatown. Léon rescues Mathilda after learning of her plan in a note left for him, killing two more of Stansfield's men in the process. An enraged Stansfield confronts Tony, who is being tortured for the location of Léon.

Léon explains to Mathilda how he became a hitman. Léon fell in love with a girl from a wealthy family when he was eighteen years old in Italy, but Léon was from a poor family. They planned to elope, but when the girl's father found out, he killed her out of rage. Léon murdered his father in retaliation and fled to New York, where he met Tony and trained to be a hitman.

Later, as Mathilda returns home from the grocery store, an NYPD ESU team dispatched by Stansfield apprehends her and infiltrates Léon's apartment. Léon surprises the ESU team and saves Mathilda. By smashing a hole in an air shaft, Léon creates a quick escape for Mathilda. He tells her he loves her and invites her to meet him at Tony's in an hour, just moments before the ESU team blows up the apartment. In the midst of the chaos, a wounded Léon escapes the building disguised as a wounded ESU officer. Everyone ignores him except Stansfield, who follows him and shoots him in the back. As Léon dies, he presses a grenade pin into Stansfield's palm, claiming it was given to him by Mathilda.

Mathilda approaches Tony and tries to persuade him to hire her, but Tony flatly refuses and tells Mathilda that Léon told him to give his money to her if anything happened to him. He gives Mathilda $100 as an allowance and returns her to school, where the headmistress re-admits her after Mathilda reveals what happened. Mathilda walks onto a field near the school to plant Léon's houseplant in order to "give it roots," as she had told Léon.

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