LEON (1994)

AKA - The Professional, The Cleaner

Tagline: If you want a job done well hire a professional.

Dir - Luc Besson

Genre - Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller

Cast - Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman

Production Budget - $16,000,000

This 1994 drama cum thriller by the director of Nikita (1990), Luc Besson, follows many of his other works; the build-up is beautiful, only to end in a way that leaves you a bit unsatisfied. The winner of a Cesar award for Best Director (The Fifth Element, 1997) and writer & producer of The Transporter (2002) uses his forte, of bringing the best out of his actors, to the max. The cream of the crop, Natalie Portman, puts up a stunning performance; hard to believe a 13 year old can act with such grace & ample maturity. Her debut film showed her potential, which she has justified in her other films like The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), V For Vendetta (2005) and in the Star Wars series as Padme Amidala. Jean Reno, is, as always; vintage Jean Reno. A special mention to Gary Oldman; great performance, his wicked persona literally brings the hatred, for his character, out of us.

Leon is about a man of the same name (Jean Reno), who works as a 'cleaner', a person who cleans up a murder, although Leon doubles up as a hitman too. At home, he lives a very sedate life with calisthenics, milk, his plant and his guns as his only interests, when one day, the family of a little girl living next door named Mathilda (Natalie Portman), gets murdered by CIA agents. Out of compassion for the little girl, Leon, reluctantly, saves her. Mathilda, bent on taking revenge for killing her little brother, implores Leon to teach her the trade of 'cleaning'. What transpires is for you to see.

Upsides: Exemplary performances, great script, subtle sarcasm

Downsides: Mathilda's training goes to waste (unlike Nikita), shoddy fight sequence

Trivia: During the filming involving all of the police cars on the street, a man ran from a store he had just robbed. When he encountered the movie set by accident, he saw all of the "police" and gave himself up to a bunch of uniformed extras.

Overall, a 3.75/5.0

Links for you:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110413/

Download:

http://rapidshare.com/files/22672741/LEON.BY.c0ckr0ach.part1.rar
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Subtitles:

http://www.subtitles-divx.net/122525/Leon.html