By Robert Scucci
| Published
Revenge is a dish best served with a tall, ice-cold glass of milk in Leon: The Professional, and if you haven’t had the pleasure of watching this action thriller in your lifetime, it’s high time you fire up the old tube and give it a whirl. Telling a story with zero fat on it, Leon: The Professional is smart, direct, leaves little room for the imagination to unpack any sort of subtext (read: there isn’t any), all for the sake of brisk pacing, rapid yet believable character development, and some pretty gnarly action sequences that will are equal parts violent and clever.
What’s more, Natalie Portman, who saw her first role in this movie at the age of 12, acts with a wise-beyond-her-years level of emotional intelligence that will make you wish you pursued your own talents at a much younger age because she absolutely crushes it in Leon: The Professional.
So Simple It’s Sickening
Leon: The Professional is one of those films with a story so simple that by virtue of its concise narrative is forced to lean into its strong characterization.
Leon (Jean Reno) is an off-the-boat hitman (or as he calls it, a cleaner) from Italy who spends his nights sleeping with one eye open, seemingly consumes nothing but milk, and devotes his entire life to his work, his workouts, and cleaning his guns. Working for the mob, Leon keeps a low profile and only really shows himself in public when he’s about to carry out a hit as ordered by mafioso Old Tony (Danny Aiello). As luck may have it, Leon has a run-in with Mathilda Lando (Natalie Portman), the young and troubled girl living in the apartment down the hall, and realizes that her father (Michael Badalucco) has attracted some bad company in the form of Gary Oldman’s Norman Stansfield, a corrupt DEA agent who moonlights in the drug trafficking trade.
Learning that her entire family was murdered by Stansfield and his goons, Mathilda seeks out Leon with the intention of learning his ways when she puts two and two together and realizes that he’s a hitman. Reluctant at first, Leon takes a liking to Mathilda when she makes an offer he can’t refuse in the form of taking care of domestic duties like shopping and cleaning, as well as teaching him how to read.
The Apprentice Becomes The Master
Through a series of montage sequences in Leon: The Professional, Leon and Mathilda form an inseparable bond that’s equal parts wholesome and troublesome. Though Leon is a gentleman who focuses solely on his work, Mathilda professes her love to him, making the entire situation awkward for both parties involved. Though Leon clearly has paternal feelings for Mathilda, he focuses on the task at hand, which is training his protege to become a cleaner without romantic intent.
But what makes Leon: The Professional so wholesome in a weird way is how well they work together when we all know that their relationship is likely going to end in some sort of tragedy given how high the stakes are. At least I was reminded of teaching my own daughter how to safely roller-skate when Leon was teaching Mathilda the best practices in sniping out targets from a rooftop– while I extoll the virtues of wearing kneepads to my daughter, Leon stresses the importances of not giving away your location to Mathilda in a firm but nurturing way.
Streaming Leon: The Professional
Leon: The Professional is one of those movies that has zero fat in its exposition so its audience can simply enjoy the dynamic between Natalie Portman and Jean Reno, who are the ultimate assassin odd couple. While Leon clearly lives in morally grey territory, he’s redeemable because he’s only taking out bad people, and when you get the full scope of who he and Mathilda are fighting against, there’s no ambiguity over who’s in the right or in the wrong in this context.
You simply need to pour yourself a tall glass of whole milk, throw your feet up on the ottoman, and stream Leon: The Professional on Tubi to enjoy it at face value as the darkly hilarious action thriller that it is.
