Now this is a
tough movie to review in the post #MeToo era. Luc Besson’s Léon (1994) is a terrific action movie that launched Natalie
Portman’s career, introduced French actor Jean Reno to American audiences and
gave us another great villain performance from Gary Oldman. The problem is it
suggests at times a romantic relationship between an underage girl and a grown
man, which was apparently based on Besson’s relationship with his first wife
who was 15 when they began dating. Making matters much, much worse, this year
Besson has been accused of rape, sexual assault, harassment and workplace abuse
(https://bit.ly/2JHi5he).
I still want to
get through this list of greatest films, and then possibly move on to another
one, so I can’t just strike off a movie because one person who helped get it to
the screen has been accused of a crime. Sadly, that would mean I would have to
take at least 100 out of 500 movies off the list. Alfred Hitchcock alone would
negate a bunch of movies, if only for what he did to Tippi Hedren. What I
choose to do is focus on the fact it takes more than one person to make a
movie, from the carpenters to the extras, and dissociate the alleged harasser
from the rest of the film crew. Even if Besson were to be found guilty, the
people who worked on Léon still did a good job.
The two leads
especially do a lot of heavy lifting with very mature material. I have a
certain admiration for assassins, at least movie assassins, who do their jobs
with a degree of professionalism. One thing I admired about the titular Léon
(Jean Reno) when I finally watched the movie from beginning to end on Netflix a
few years back is the way in which he kills his way to a New York City mob boss
only to deliver a message. The first person who dies in the film does not die
at his hands, but is instead killed by his friends because Léon is smart enough
to manipulate the situation. By the time all the mob boss’s bodyguards are dead
with almost surgical precision he is so scared he calls the police, only for
Léon to sneak up behind him.
Despite being
very good at killing people, Léon is not just a scary character. He leads a
simple life, taking orders from his contact and only friend in life Tony (Danny
Aiello), lives alone in his apartment, waters his plant, exercises and watches
movies. Reno’s subtle performance allows us to see a killer who does feel
things, mainly loneliness. His isolation is suddenly broken when Mathilda
(Natalie Portman), his 12-year-old neighbour, comes knocking at his door
seeking refuge from crooked DEA agents who have murdered her family.
Mathilda’s family
life was not a good one, with her father being an abusive man who stashed drugs
for crooked agent Stansfield (Gary Oldman, oftentimes going completely unhinged).
However her younger brother was innocent and certainly did not deserve to die,
so when Mathilda discovers Léon’s day job she of course asks him to teach her
how to get her revenge. The professional thing would be for Léon to kill her,
but he takes pity on her and decides to help the only way he can. It turns out
there is a learning curve to killing. First you start from a distance with a
sniper rifle, and then work your way up to a knife to kill your target in close
quarters.
The action
sequences in the movie are very well choreographed, but seeing Natalie Portman
walk into a police station with the intention of committing murder is not as
disturbing as her telling a man old enough to be her dad that she is in love
with him. At such a young age Portman was still as good an actress as she is
today, but it’s hard to imagine this film could possibly get made today even if
it wasn’t for the accusations against Besson.
I could be
persuaded to watch Léon again to see
Jean Reno in his prime, Gary Oldman chew the scenery as DEA agent high on the
product he’s meant to be taking off the streets and Portman in one of her
earliest and most challenging roles. Yet nowadays it would be impossible to
ignore how wrong the relationship is between the two main characters.
Apparently the director’s cut of the movie even has a scene in which Mathilda
directly asks Léon to be her lover. In his own review of the movie my idol
Roger Ebert said there was something wrong with placing a 12-year-old in the
middle of all this action. I can only imagine what he would have thought of the
director’s cut.
Comments
Post a Comment