The crime drama is about a
professional assassin who rescues a teenage girl after her family is killed by
a corrupt police detective and his team. The girl asks for the assassin’s help.
She wants him to train her in his art so that she can avenge her family.
In France writer-director Luc Besson had
already made the critically acclaimed hit films The Big Blue and La
Femme Nikita, but it is Leon that put him on the map in the States. He has
since become France’s biggest filmmaker (mostly writing and producing action
films like Taken). Besson
has a set group of collaborators that he works with – all of whom do fantastic
work – including: composer Eric
Serra, cinematographer Thierry
Arbogast, and production designer Dan Weil.
The film stars Jean Reno (who is also a
frequent collaborator with Besson – appearing in eight Besson productions,
including Besson’s first four films as a director) and Natalie
Portman, featuring Danny
Aiello, Michael Badalucco,
and Gary
Oldman in support. While the film served as a breakthrough for both Reno
and Portman’s careers (Reno in the States and Portman as a young actress), it
is Oldman who gives the film’s best and most iconic performance, creating one
of cinema’s greatest villains (something he would do again in Besson’s The Fifth
Element).
Leon is currently number
thirty-one of IMDb’s list of the Top 250 rated movies of all-time, which attests
to how much its fans love it. It is a particularly strong character drama for a
film that is mainly built around an epic action scene at the end. For fans of
crime dramas, this is a must-see.
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