Leon: The Professional (1994) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written July 27th, 2017*

*Director's Cut*

"No women. No kids"

It's a weird thing to say, but I always find it hardest to talk about my favourite films of all-time, as opposed to films I hate. Leon is a film I've loved since I was very, very young (I have hazy images of watching it on VHS when I was maybe 6 or 7? Then it become a film I would watch constantly on DVD as I got older, then Blu-ray, then hopefully 4K when that gets released in the UK. Don't know where I'm going with this.

Anyway, Leon is a film I adore. It's in my top five of all-time. There's just something about it that keeps me watching it. It's violent and tragic, but has genuine heart and sweetness to it. Kinda like Terminator 2 (Why the '90s were the best decade of films for me). It's a film that's inspired a lot of stuff I love and I still find out to be Luc Besson's best film by FAR. I honestly don't have much love for any of his films beside Leon.

Leon is a weird film, and that's only just hit me. It takes place in a world that is so far removed from the real world. It almost feels like a comic-book movie or a graphic novel brought to life (A bit like John Wick). This is a world where a 12 year old girl can be trained to be an assassin after a drug addicted maniac of a DEA agent murders her entire family with no repercussions at all. This is what I like about Besson at his best. He creates interesting worlds, but I feel this is his only real successful attempt.

Jean Reno gives what is easily his best performance as the childlike and naive hit-man Leon, who is clearly a bit slow and emotionally stunted. But this gives way to some scenes of genuine sweetness. One scene I really love is an early scene where Leon is watching a musical film at the cinema by himself and watching the film in some sort of childlike wonder. Leon's mentality also makes sure that the relationship between him and 12 year old Matilda is never creepy, despite the reverse Lolita like overtones.

Natalie Portman is also excellent in her breakout role and what is still probably her best performance. Despite her young age, she takes control of all the emotional scenes between her and Leon. 

The villain of the piece, Gary Oldman nearly steals the show as the utterly psychotic Stansfield, the drug addled DEA agent who is always at 11. Even with the over the top performance, there is enough minor and subtle tweaks that keep the character grounded within the world. I do also miss film villains with a love for classical music (God bless '80s and '90s action cinema).

With a film centred around an assassin training a 12 year old girl to be a cleaner, this could have been an over the top explotation film, which would have been fun, but what they went for is much more meaningful and heartfelt. The ending is one of the most beautiful scenes of film-making ever put on screen and will put a tear on the face of anyone who isn't a stone cold sociopath. 

There's been a lot of talk about a sequel to Leon following a grown up Matilda as a hit-man. Some of this talk is genuine, some of it is bullshit. 
Thankfully, it looks like that will never see the light of day as the script was turned into the standalone film 'Colombiana' instead, which has no connection to Leon. Thank god, this film does not need a sequel. It tells its story perfectly and making a sequel would only go against everything the film built up to.


I wish I could have worded all this better, but I love Leon. One of my favourite films ever and one I will always continue to pick up and watch every now and then. A career high for most people involved. A near peak for '90s cinema and one of the best films of all time.

10/10 Dans

Leon: The Professional is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

Follow us:
Twitter: @FigmentReviews, @DanBremner96 and @ArronRoke91
Instagram: @DanBremner96 and @ArronRoke
YouTube: Figment Reviews 
Letterboxd: Dan and Arron
Facebook

Jackie (2016) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written January 20th, 2017*

"When something is written down, does that make it true?"

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure how I felt about Jackie. It's a strange beast of a film and a bit hard to get through, but it is thoroughly fascinating and features an amazing performance from Natalie Portman. It's also worth pointing out the release of this film in the UK was on Trump's inauguration day, which was either a strange coincidence or intentional.

A lot has been said about Natalie Portman's performance here as Jackie Kennedy following her week after her husband's assassination. As expected, she was great. While her accent was a little hard to get behind at first (I had no idea what Jackie Kennedy actually sounds like), she really captures that broken grief of suffering such a traumatic event and worrying about her husband's legacy in the process. Maybe it was just my hearing, but I did have a little trouble hearing what she was saying at times. Towards the end I thought she said "There won't be another Candyland".

Where Jackie also exceeds is its period design and costumes, this is a gorgeous film with a look I can't quite put my finger on. The aspect ratio was also a little jarring to me. There was some great use of historical footage mixed in with real scenes showing just how perfectly they captured some of these moments. As a fan of films with long vacant stares with close ups of characters, there was no shortage of this in Jackie. It didn't linger as much as say Refn, but it felt more interesting than your usual biopic.

While I was definitely interested to see Jackie for Natalie Portman's performance, I would be lying if I wasn't more interested in Mica Levi's score for this. This is only her second score, the first being the amazing Under the Skin, she's also from Guildford, where I'm from, which is cool. While not as strong as her Under the Skin score, I did love her score for Jackie, another hypnotic and beautiful orchestral soundtrack that elevated most of the scenes. I will say, while I loved what I was hearing, the music did feel out of place sometimes, making scenes feel really unsettling and foreboding rather than what I think they were going for. It might have tampered with some of the more emotional moments.

My biggest problem I found with Jackie was easily its editing. Like I said, this was a hard film to get through, it has no real sense of pace. The scenes are really short and it jumps around a lot, I just wish they lingered on some of these moments more. This really could have done with an extra 20 minutes or so. It all does feel very contained at least, it all takes place within a week or so, which was interesting. It's just a shame it didn't feel more coherent. It's not an abomniation of editing in the same way Suicide Squad was for example, but it was a bit messy and stopped a good film from being a great one.

Jackie was a very interesting and different biopic led by Portman's potentially Oscar winning performance, beautiful design and Mica Levi's gorgeous score.

7/10 Dans

Jackie is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

Follow us:
Twitter: @FigmentReviews, @DanBremner96 and @ArronRoke91
Instagram: @DanBremner96 and @ArronRoke
YouTube: Figment Reviews
Letterboxd: Dan and Arron
Facebook