No women, no children
In 1994, Luc Besson gave us plenty of reason to think that he was great with action-oriented films. His first film, La Femme Nikita, was enormously successful for a foreign film. The film, which has a reformed drug addict turned hitman (or woman) bright new brutal ways to bring action to screen. Fast forward a few years and Besson erupts onto the scene with Jean Reno (who was a ‘cleaner’ in Nikita) as a hitman named Léon, who finds himself protecting an orphaned girl from a corrupt police force led by the very strange, yet talented, Gary Oldman.
It seems like a simple story and it is. Besson, who mastered the ‘action’ portion of his filmmaking career, this time added a strong element of emotion between the two lead characters. He established an exact, secluded world for Léon at the beginning of the film. He showed our main guy taking out a ‘hit’ with preciseness that could only be rivaled by Clint Eastwood’s character in Unforgiven. The very next scene, we’re introduced to a very lonely, abused girl named Mathilda, who is simply looking to find some sort of silver lining in her dark cloud. Both characters need and feed off each other for happiness, especially when Mathilda loses everything. It’s an innocent and tragic love affair (not literally, of course, because that would be gross) that fits perfectly with some intense action and quick editing. Reno’s innocent, dumbfounded look when he interacts with people he likes makes him lovable, in a sick sort of sense. Portman’s need for a parental figure in her life, and most of all need for any love, makes her a perfect piece to fit with Reno’s Léon. Again, it’s a tragic story of two lonely people coming together, but it’s one that stands strong, especially when the chips start to fall in the wrong direction.
What kind of reviewer would I be if I didn’t mention anything about the antagonist character of Stansfield? A bad one, so let’s dig into Gary Oldman’s psycho cop. Stansfield is neither good nor really bad. He’s a struggling cop that is drugged out of his mind, but maintains some regret for his actions. For example, towards the middle of the movie he corners Mathilda in the men’s bathroom he has clear intentions of killing her. You get a sense of humanity from Stansfield when he asks, “What piece of (bleep) job did I do to you?” He says the line calmly and with some regret. Oldman is genius as this guy and is potentially the strongest villain from this type of film genre (at least in the 90s). He’s unpredictable and frightening, but slightly comedic at times. Oldman’s performance is what helps drive this film and poses as an example of how an evil, corrupt cop should be.
With all this praise you should know that movie isn’t perfect. Léon’s training of Mathilda for ‘cleaning’, while a great way to build the two character’s relationship with each other, poses as a dragging point for the film. If Léon had a few more jobs and a few more interactions with his ‘professional’ life then it might have broken this up a bit. Regretfully, what started off really strong ended up a little weak in the middle. The fight at the end brings it all back together solidly, but it could have been revised a bit more to make it a tiny bit more exciting. Anyway, this is my only complaint about the film.
As for the blu-ray portion of this, the visuals and audio are solid. Sure I’ve seen better, but not much better. Sony Pictures did a great job with transferring this to HD and it makes the experience that much better. The audio helps immensely with the atmosphere, as you’ll here gunfire from every direction during the final battle in the film. Coming to you in DTS-HD, you’ll feel like you should be ducking under your couch avoiding gunfire.
As for features, they are really quite solid as well. Here’s what you’re getting:
– 10 Year Retrospective from Cast and Crew featurette
– Jean Reno: The Road to Léon featurette
– Natalie Portman: Starting Young featurette
– Fact Track
– Theatrical and Extended version of the film
While it certainly is low in numbers, the features you do get from this blu-ray are still good. I particularly love the fact track on the film. You also get two different versions of the movie, extended and theatrical.