Leon: The Professional

“The rifle is the first weapon you learn how to use, because it lets you keep your distance from the client. The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn.”

            In movies and TV shows I think it is interesting to see the good and bad sides of characters. I have learned that no character is truly all bad and no character is truly all good. You can see this on the show Once Upon a Time. The Evil Queen did not start off evil she was a beautiful kind woman who was influenced by her mother into becoming evil. Snow White and Prince Charming have some darks moments in their past that have literally left a dark spot on their hearts. One of my favorite things in TV shows and movies is when a character breaks down and becomes either good or bad. I just like seeing different sides of people I like seeing what is in them and they are capable of.  In the real world no matter how bad some humans may be there is some good in them somewhere (unless you are talking about Hitler and the Nazis but that is an entirely long other story).

            Léon: The Professional is about a man who is a badass deadly assassin with no emotional attachments until a little girl changes everything for him. He could be seen as a bad guy who gets his heart changed and turns to doing killing for good. It is not a cheesy soppy story it actually gets more awesome as it progresses.

            Léon (Jean Reno) is an assassin for an Italian mobster named Tony. Tony has him go scare off a drug dealer who is refusing to leave town. Léon single handedly takes out all the guards and sneaks up right behind the dealer.

            After the job he heads to the convenience store like any normal person in society and buys two cartons of milk. While walking to his apartment he sees the little girl Matilda (Natalie Portman) his neighbor’s daughter sitting near the stairs smoking. He goes into his apartment but looks out the peep hole to see a dealer and his men roughing Matilda’s father. Apparently he was given a package of coke that had been one hundred percent pure but now it is at ninety percent. The father swears he did not cut it he has no idea who did. The head dealer Stansfield (Gary Oldman) tells the father that he has until noon the following day to find out who cut the coke.

            The following day Stansfield and his men come back. They show no mercy and shoot up the entire department including Matilda’s father, younger brother, and step-mother and sister. Matilda was fortunately out at the convenience store and was spared ending up like her family. She comes home and realizes what is happening. She walks past the apartment to Léon’s and begs him to let her into his apartment. Matilda tells Léon that she is not sad about her father and step-mother and step-sister being killed she is sad about her little brother being killed because he was innocent and the only one she liked. She wants him to kill the men who killed her brother but he will not do that. Then Matilda asks Léon to let her stay with her and train her to be a cleaner like him. Léon tells her he does not believe she has it in her to kill people. She grabs one of his guns and shoots it off into the street.

            Weeks go by and Léon trains Matilda how to shoot. They each take care of each other. Matilda still wants Léon to help her kill the men who killed her brother and he still will not help her. She goes back to her apartment to grab some clothes and some of her stuffed animals. She hears detectives come into the apartment along with Stansfield who it turns out works for the DEA. Matilda does some recon on Stansfield so she can get her revenge.

            Matilda’s revenge does not work out as well as she had hoped. Luckily she left a letter for Léon telling her what she was doing and where she would be. He saves her life and later sacrifices his own in order for her to have a better life.

            My summary of Léon: The Professional is not that great but trust me the movie is very good. I liked the relationship between Leon and Matilda. As an eleven year old Matilda thought she was in love with Léon but really looking at it she was “in love” with him because he was the only one who ever really cared for her. Léon liked her because she brought out his caring side. Gary Oldman was insane he was the best part of the entire movie. Léon: The Professional is a movie worth seeing at least once.