Viewed in
2010
Premise
Jean Reno stars as a professional hitman, who reluctantly becomes guardian of an orphaned young girl, played by Natalie Portman.
Loved
Dynamic between Reno and Portman, the opening sequence of Reno doing his job, the awesome apartment shootout scene.
Liked
Pretty much everything else.
Thoughts
A slick action movie with some creative character twists.
Jean Reno has been one of my favorite minor character actors for a long time, and it was nice to see him as the lead. As expected he was just plain cool. Gary Oldman was fantastic as the addicted, murderous DEA agent, playing his character with sadistic panache. A very young Natalie Portman definitely held her own with Reno and Oldman. Both Oldman and Portman had great scene-stealing moments.
What stood out was the interesting relationship between Leon (Reno) and Mathilda (Portman). He was conflicted between his professional need for isolation and his sympathy for her. At the same time, she flustered him with her desire for revenge and budding sexuality. It brought some cool twists to the mentor-pupil/parent-child/reluctant adoption/odd couple relationships, and surprised me with hilarious moments.
As expected, director Luc Besson's visual flair was fun to watch, with kinetic cameras and eye-catching color schemes. The two major action sequences definitely brought the "oomph" factor that made them memorable.
Despite all this good stuff, something prevented it from greatness. But even two days later, I could not put my finger on it. At times, Portman gave off a creepy Lolita vibe, and I have read some complaints about that. But I thought the Lolita-ness was daring, creative, and intentional. In an opening scene, Mathilda was surrounded by female sexuality in her family.
While I enjoyed the relationship between these two characters, it did seem to get a little repetitive about two-thirds in with all the Leon/Mathilda scenes. The only other thing that bugged me was Jean Reno's heavy French accent playing an Italian immigrant.
I saw the Longer Version, and based on the added scenes, this might be the better version. According to Wikipedia, this contained a lot more of the dynamics between Portman and Reno, which I very much enjoyed.
Bottom line, this was a cool film, with fun action scenes, strong performances, and an interesting story.
What I would change
Nothing.
