Léon

Leon: Mathilda. don't you ever do that again or I'll break your head. you got that? Mathilda: Okay. Leon: I don't work like that, It's not professional. There are rules. Mathilda: Okay. Leon: And stop saying "Okay" all the time, Okay? Mathilda: okay Leon: Good this cracked me up 😂😂

This movie is a good example of the pitfalls of relying on user reviews/ ratings for selecting movies to watch. By no stretch of imagination should this movie have been in the Top 250 list or anywhere even close to it. The acting and direction were poor, the story very lacklustre, unimaginative and predictable and many of the scenes were downright ludicrous. Leon appears retarded in many scenes but an attempt is made to depict him as an intelligent person. Some of the scenes will require you to suspend disbelief - one of them being a rocket launcher being fired at an apartment from inside the building by cops!

Well well. Luc Besson takes on John Cassavetes for the first time in this pastiche (for the first half, anyway) of Gloria. Jean Reno is an illiterate Italian (? it's not totally clear, but this is how he's referred to) hit-man in his 40s in New York, a simpleton with no friends other than his plant, an assassin of inordinate skill (though we see no real evidence of this until the very end of the film) who takes in an orphaned Natalie Portman, a pre-teen when this was filmed but dressing like a hooker through most of the film, eventually agreeing to teach her the assassin's art so she can revenge herself upon the killer of her horrible family, Gary Oldman as an insane, dirty-cop drug-addict DEA officer. Got it? Yeah, I got it, it wasn't hard to figure out....though none of it made any sense, ever. There are a few reviews of this film that have suggested that it be looked at as existing in sort of a fantasy world, and that would seem to be a better way of looking at it. Not much makes sense if looked at in real-world terms, even less sense than in usual in a violent action movie; but the film doesn't seem to have any internal logic. Reno is the hit-man to end all hit men despite being an illiterate simpleton? Oldman is some fairly high-level cop despite being so obviously, categorically insane? There never seem to be any extras around in most of the indoor scenes; there's a whole 5-minute scene in a washroom between Oldman and Portman and nobody intrudes. None of this works in a film that ostensibly takes place in a real New York City Let's talk about the acting. Though I didn't think Reno's character made any sense, I rather liked him, I got taken in by his charm; Oldman on the other hand played a complete cartoon character. Did he play him well? Perhaps. I don't know. Was he supposed to be a cartoon? Did Besson think this was a cool idea? I guess so. It didn't work for me, at all. It was awful. And Portman; I'm not going to necessarily argue that her performance was bad, I'll give a 12-year-old the benefit of the doubt when playing a character that has to alternate between cutesy, slutty, and determined; but again, I didn't buy the person she was supposed to be. And although at the end the film never....quite....indulges in the pedophilic fantasies that it seems to be heading towards, it still comes to close for comfort. Portman wears skimpy outfits throughout, and the camera pays more attention to her ass than is probably necessary. Were this my first Luc Besson film, I might have given him a bit of a pass, but given his usual predilection for waifish, very young model types...ewww. The ending is sentimental, trite, and completely unbelievable. It's an extension of the film as a whole, which probably doesn't even deserve the 3/10 I'll give it.

You have to watch this film. It is beautiful, intimate, original., action-packed and no one is going to tell Mto not love her man. She just doesn't care for normal mainstream opinions. This couple is original!

Just when you thought the large majority of reviewers on IMDb were reasonable and constructive in their analysis, along comes a film which destroys completely that impression! This movie is relentlessly and thoroughly implausible from its opening scene to the improbable closing where the sole remaining possession of Leon, a potted plant which has miraculously survived, amongst other things, walls of fire, smoke bombs and bazooka attacks, is planted in what appears to be an open lawn! Unbelievable that seemingly 80% or more of near 900 reviewers here have very strangely anointed this movie a near masterpiece. My score of 5 is over-generous considering the litany of implausible character and plot situations. The most incredulous situation is the fact that Mathilda is a 12 year old, sometimes acting her age but more often than not engaging in conversation which is not only that of a mature woman but also appears quite disturbing in light of the sexual tension depicted. And for goodness sake, what 12 year old blithely refers to long dead couples such as Bonnie and Clyde?! The age factor of Mathilda and the implausibility of her words and actions in every scene remain front and center at the startlingly obvious weakness of this movie, regardless of how brilliant Natalie Portman's performance may appear.How incredible that she seems to have taught the near illiterate Leon to read in what seems just over a week. Considering that Leon has been in the US since age 19 and has developed skills as an ace hit-man and YET still can't read English defies credibility. As for Gary Oldman's portrayal of Stansfield, how could the actions of a vicious, destructive pill-popping police officer of seniority go unnoticed? How did he reach such a position in the first place? Totally unbelievable. And how can the near destruction of a hotel in Leon's pursuit of the gangster in the opening scenes, with innumerable rounds of machine gun fire, go unnoticed by anybody else in the building. Unbelievable. No police response until the climax where seemingly hundreds of highly-armed police and commandos with flame throwers and bazookas and smoke bombs and.......absolutely UNBELIEVABLE! So over-rated, so implausible. This bilge borders on parody. Ridiculous movie-making.