Also known as Léon, The Professional, it's a 1994 film directed by Luc Besson, starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and featuring Natalie Portman in her first major role.Leone "Léon" Montana (Reno), is a quiet and high skilled assassin whose next-door neighbors were just gunned down. They were involved in the cocaine trade so their end might not have been that surprising. The only survivor is 12-year-old Mathilda Lando (Portman) who begs Léon to save her. Léon reluctantly takes her under his wing, showing her the trade. She is intent on avenging her family, going after the Dirty Cop responsible for their murder.Not to be confused with The Professionals, the British TV series. Or with Le Professionnel, another French film with Jean-Paul Belmondo as its star.
This movie contains examples of:
Abusive Parents: Ayep. Perhaps provides an example why Mathilda doesn't care that they are killed. Her little brother however...
Adorkable: Leon
Affably Evil: Tony comes across as a nice guy and even throws children's birthday parties in his lair. However, he also orders several dozen people murdered over the short period of time in which the film takes place.
Air Vent Passageway: Subverted; Leon shoots and hacks out the hotel's ventilator fan so Mathilda can slide down to ground level. Unfortunately there's not enough room for him.
Ax Crazy: While ostensibly the leader of the corrupt cops, Stansfield is so psychotic that his second-in-command has to take charge when he becomes too wrapped up in slaughter.
Bittersweet Ending: Leon dies, but Matilda did get her revenge. And Leon's roots can grow, now.
Black and Gray Morality: The protagonists are a hitman and a girl also interested in killing people. The antagonist is a corrupt cop who is a Complete Monster.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Stansfield is rather eccentric, to say the least. He discusses classical music during hits, is careless about where he points his gun, and frequently switches from absolute calm to screaming rage and back.
Camping a Crapper: Mathilda tries to ambush Stansfield in the restroom. Unfortunately Stansfield is hiding behind the door, not sitting in one of the booths.
Career Killers: Léon is a subversion of the hitman archetype.
Cassandra Truth: Inverted; the headmistress of the orphanage doesn't believe Mathilda's story about her parents being killed in a car crash, but does believe when she talks about living with a hitman and being chased by corrupt DEA agents.
Chekhov's Gun: The "Ring Trick," which sets up the very end. The American theatrical cut does not feature the set-up, but it's not really necessary.
Chekhov's Skill: Leon's crunches/sit-ups. He's seen doing them in early scenes of the film, and tries to teach Mathilda how to do them while training her. They also allow him to hang from the ceiling unseen and ambush Stansfeld's men during the climatic showdown.
Celibate Hero: Leon hasn't had a girlfriend since his first love was murdered.
The Danza: Reggae singer Willi One Blood as a henchman. Another character calls him "Willi" and Stansfield calls him "Blood".
Dangerously Genre Savvy : Stansfield knows the confrontation with Léon is going to be a difficult one and tells the assault team to be careful, while he stays out of the shooting. Once the team is beaten as he kind of expected he sends backup in full force, and still is prepared to counter the quiet exit Léon attempts.
Dawson Casting: Averted with 11-year old Natalie Portman. Luc Besson resisted early attempts to cast 15-17 year old actresses, even though it would have made things easier for him.
Dead Little Sister: Gender-flipped. Mathilda doesn't give a damn about the rest of her family, but the bastards who killed her little brother are gonna die.
Dirty Cop: Stansfield, along with the rest of his crew, all of whom work for the D.E.A.
Distracted by the Sexy: A uniformed policeman misses Mathilda entering a crime scene because he's flirting with a woman from the building.
Dressing as the Enemy: Leon wears the uniform of a SWAT officer killed during the raid on his apartment, so he'll be evacuated quickly through the cordon of police.
One of Stanfield's men reacts with horror when Mathilda's brother ends up getting accidentally killed by Blood, and can be heard shouting angrilly at him later in the scene. Killing the rest of the family apparently fell within his standards.
Leon himself refuses to take jobs killing women or children.
Executive Veto: The American theatrical cut out certain shocking or morally gray scenes of the film. The most Lolicon-ish aspects of the core relationship are gone. Scenes of Mathilda accompanying Leon on his assassinations are also gone. These deletions vastly change the film's characterizations. In the edited version, Mathilda remains far more pure. Ultimately she ends the film without blood on her hands and can reasonably return to a normal life. In the unedited version, however, she's helped kill over a dozen people, which does not fit with her hesitation to kill Stansfield nor her apparent rehabilitation at the end. Your Mileage May Vary on which version you prefer.
Mathilda: "No, I want you to drive slowly, take the hundred bucks and shut the fuck up, okay?"
Foot Popping: Spoofed. When Leon rescues her from the police station, Mathilda throws herself into his arms. Cue a shot of their feet; naturally Mathilda's are hanging a foot above the ground.
Friend or Foe: Stansfield's gang nearly shoot one another on several occasions during the massacre, and at least one SWAT trooper is killed this way.
Gun Kata: A shotgun-toting Stansfield moves to the Ludwig Van in his head while massacring Mathilda's family.
He Knows Too Much: After Leon takes Mathilda into his home, that night we see him staring at the ceiling while she's asleep. Suddenly he leaps up, attaches a silencer to his pistol, places it against her head... and can't pull the trigger. Depending on your interpretation, this might have been an aborted Mercy Kill instead.
Inverse Ninja Law: In the final act, Léon is up against an entire heavily armed SWAT unit by himself. And he gets away. It's not until Stansfield sneaks up on him from behind on his own that he's finally defeated.
Jumped at the Call: Mathilda shows particular zeal for avenging her innocent brother.
Jurisdiction Friction: The NYPD is not happy about the slaying of an entire family with no explanation other then the DEA guys saying they were doing their job.
Large Ham: Gary Oldman, sharply contrasted with Jean Reno.
Laser Sight: Visible beams hunt for Leon and Mathilda in their apartment, which become visible due to the smoke and dust that has accumulated in the room.
Light is Good: A terrified Mathilda is knocking on Leon's door, watched by a suspicious member of Stansfield's gang. Nothing happens, though we know Leon is on the other side debating whether to become involved. Suddenly light shines on Mathilda's face from the opening door and we see her look of relief. Inverted when a flash of light is used to indicate Stansfield shooting Leon In the Back.
Lolicon: Inverted - the twelve-year old Mathilda has a girlhood crush on the much older Leon, who repeatedly flat out tells her it won't happen. A deleted scene shows Leon turning down Mathilda's offer of losing her virginity to him, though she insists they share the bed from then on instead of Leon sleeping in the chair. Luc Besson had to cut that because preview audiences were laughing nervously and thus killing the mood. In the double disk version the scene was put back in the movie.
More Dakka: After Leon wipes out their entry team, SWAT brings up a tripod-mounted, belt-fed machine gun. And then they stick a rifle grenade in the muzzle and blast it through the door into Leon's apartment.
Noodle Incident: Léon's overseas affair, which somehow figures into his current role. This is however explained in the International Cut as his girlfriend's death. Due to Leon's family being less respectable than her's, her father killed her when she ignored his request to end the affair. Leon then killed him in revenge and fled to America, to join his father who was already working for Tony.
No Peripheral Vision: Léon hides above the doorway as the SWAT team enters his apartment. To be fair, they are wearing gas masks, which restrict vision quite a bit.
Only a Flesh Wound: Léon gets shot in the shoulder by an assault rifle while hanging upside down. After dropping one of his guns and grimacing, he shoots the SWAT guy and manages to pull himself back up above the door.
Punch Clock Villain: Leon is a merciless assassin while on the clock. On his own time, he's almost childishly innocent.
The Reveal: At first Stansfield and his men appear to be just another drug gang. When they hear police sirens approaching after the massacre his Number Two calmly tells Stansfield that they've got to go, but Stansfield tells one of his mooks to stay behind.
Willi: "What do you want me to tell them?"
Stansfield: "Tell them...we were doing our jobs."
Russian Roulette: Mathilda does this to show she's ready to become a killer. Leon knocks her hand away at the last second, which is just as well because the revolver goes off.
Self Stitching: Leon fixes himself up in the shower after suffering an off-camera injury during a hit.
Senseless Violins: Leon is shown carrying an instrument case when moving house, though not removing a weapon from it.
Shout Out: Leon is signed in a hotel registry under the name "MacGuffin"
Staged Shooting: A paintball round is used against a jogger. In the international version it seems the same thing is happening again when Mathilda shoots a mark leaving only a red splatter, but Leon casually kills him after pointing out to Mathilda what she did wrong.
Teach Me How To Fight: Mathilda trades reading lessons for training in the assassin's arts. The two different versions of the film differ on how much training she actually receives.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Stansfield sends 200 SWAT officers with an RPG while regular cops establish a perimeter, to go after one man and 12-year old girl in a cramped apartment building.
Stansfield: I said take the guy out, not the whole fucking building!
Training Montage: Mathilda learns gun handling, milk drinking and chin-ups. She is not happy about the last two.
Artistic License - Geography: At the end of the film, Mathilda is at the Spenser School, which according to the headmistress's telephone conversation is supposed to be in Wildwood, New Jersey; in the final moments before the credits, it's shown that the school overlooks the Hudson River and Manhattan. However, Wildwood is in fact an oceanfront community near the tip of Cape May, over 150 miles away from New York City. (These scenes were actually filmed at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken.)
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