Leon The Professional

For my last lived experience blog I chose to do another movie review. The movie I chose to review was Leon The Professional. This movie starts out with Leon, who you find out is actually a contract killer or “cleaner” as he puts it, moving through a complex taking out various bodyguards to get to his target to threaten him. The movie then takes a different turn when a little girl’s family gets murdered and she (Mathilda) waits outside Leon’s apartment hoping for him to let him in, when finally she does. She then lives with him till she can get enough money to move out. When she realizes that Leon is a contract killer, she then wants him to then teach her how to kill for a living so she can get back at the men who killed her family. Mathilda then teaches Leon a few things like that he can love and doesn’t just have to be a cold hearted contract killer. There’s another twist when the men who killed her family, who turn out to be crooked cops, capture Mathilda. I’m not sure how exactly I heard about this movie in the first place, one night a few buddies of mine and I were bored and decided to go out and rent a movie, Leon the professional looked like it would be a good movie, turns out it is. While I was thinking of what to write about I remembered this movie and wanted to see if it was independently made, sure enough its more of a European independent film but its been converted over to America. The movie is shot in kind of a grainy film, which gives a low grungy feel to the movie which goes along with the lifestyle that Leon has chosen. There are a lot of close up shots of Leon looking through his peephole in the door and also of him just sitting around for a while, which gives a look at his mundane day to day life. Pretty much all of the camera work is done close up as to give a more hands on feel which is what the world of professional contract killing is all about. When he’s teaching Mathilda about his trade, he explains that the knife is the last weapon you use, and that’s when you’re a professional. Overall I enjoyed the movie a lot because I’m into those kind of films but I recommend it to anyone who likes the kind of suspenseful stealth type movies.
-Dustin Fletcher