Gaumont are set to release their own version of Luc Besson's Leon (together with La femme Nikita and The Fifth Element) on June 11 in Gallic territories. Tech specs TBA (yet, preliminary Region-coding status should make a lot of people very happy).
Roger Ebert:
Quote:
History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. So, apparently, do the films of Luc Besson. In 1992 he made "La Femme Nikita," which in its cold sadness told the story of a tough street girl who became a professional killer and then a civilized woman. Now he has made "The Professional," about a tough child who wants to become a professional killer, and civilizes the man she chooses as her teacher.
Besson seems fascinated by the "Pygmalion" story, by the notion of a feral street person who is transformed by education. He crosses that with what seems to be an obsession with women who kill as a profession. These are interesting themes, and if "The Professional" doesn't work with anything like the power of "La Femme Nikita," it is because his heroine is 12 years old, and we cannot persuade ourselves to ignore that fact. It colors every scene, making some unlikely and others troubling.
The film opens with one of those virtuoso shots which zips down the streets of New York and in through a door, coming to a sudden halt at a plate of Italian food and then looking up at its owner. Besson must have been watching the opening of the old Letterman show. The man eating the food is a mob boss, played by Danny Aiello, who wants to put a contract on a guy. The man who has come whizzing through the streets is Leon (Jean Reno), a skillful but uneducated "cleaner," or professional hitman.
We see him at work, in opening scenes of startling violence and grim efficiency. In the course of the movie, Leon will, in effect, adopt his neighbor Matilda (Natalie Portman), a tough, streetwise, 12-yearold girl. She escapes to Leon's nearby apartment after her family has been wiped out by a crooked top DEA enforcer named Stansfield (Gary Oldman), who wants to kill her too. Matilda wants to hire Leon to avenge the death of her little brother; in payment, she offers to do his laundry.
Leon wants nothing to do with the girl, but she insists, and attaches herself like a leech. Eventually she develops an ambition to become a cleaner herself. And their fate plays out like those of many another couple on the lam, although with that 30-year age difference.
Matilda is played with great resourcefulness by Portman, who is required by the role to be, in a way, stronger than Leon. She has seen so many sad and violent things in her short life, and in her dysfunctional family, that little in his life can surprise her. She's something like the Jodie Foster character in "Taxi Driver," old for her years. Yet her references are mostly to movies: "Bonnie and Clyde didn't work alone," she tells him. "Thelma and Louise didn't work alone. And they were the best." (To find a 12-yearold in 1994 who knows "Bonnie and Clyde" is so extraordinary that it almost makes everything else she does plausible.) So Leon finds himself saddled with a little sidekick, just when the manic Stansfield is waging a personal vendetta against him.
Although "The Professional" bathes in grit and was shot in the scuzziest locations New York has to offer, it's a romantic fantasy, not a realistic crime picture. Besson's visual approach gives it a European look; he finds Paris in Manhattan. That air of slight displacement helps it get away with various improbabilities, as when Matilda teaches Leon to read (in a few days, apparently), or when Leon is able to foresee the movements of his enemies with almost psychic accuracy.
This gift is useful during several action sequences in "The Professional," when Leon, alone and surrounded by dozens if not hundreds of law officers, is able to conceal himself in just such a way that when the cops enter an apartment in just such a manner, he can swing down from the ceiling, say, and blast them. Or he can set a trap for them. Or he can apparently teleport himself from one part of an apartment to another; they think they have him cornered, but he's behind them. So many of the movie's shoot-outs unfold so conveniently for him that they seem choreographed. The Oldman character sometimes seems to set himself up to be outsmarted, while trying to sneak up on Leon in any way not actually involving chewing through the scenery.
The premise "La Femme Nikita" was that its heroine began as a thoroughly uncivilized character without a decent bone in her body, and then, after society exploited her savagery, she was slowly civilized through the love of a good, simple man. "The Professional" uses similar elements, rearranged. It is a well-directed film, because Besson has a natural gift for plunging into drama with a charged-up visual style. And it is well acted.
But always at the back of my mind was the troubled thought that there was something wrong about placing a 12-year-old character in the middle of this action. In a more serious movie, or even in a human comedy like Cassavetes' "Gloria," the child might not have been out of place. But in what is essentially an exercise - a slick urban thriller - it seems to exploit the youth of the girl without really dealing with it.
I take it that the Director's cut is a vast improvement?
I'd say so!!! The International Uncut version (as it is actually called) is 30-some minutes longer. The edited version took out an amazing chunk of footage where Natalie Portman's character joins Leon on his hits, as well as an Oscar winning scene where her character holds a gun to her own head. Both of those scenarios are big "no way in hell" scenes for North American audiences... well, based on the "powers that be who know what's best for us." They wouldn't want to show a child assisting an assassin and trying to commit suicide over the love she has for a fully grown man!
Leon The Professional to have both versions, forced subtitles?
If I understand correctly, the forthcoming French release of Leon will have both the cut version of the film and the long version, but the long version will have forced French subtitles. Is this true? What is it with the French and forced subtitles on "original versions" of English language films? Is it a law in France that obliges them to do that? It might be better to buy the just announced UK BD release...
If I understand correctly, the forthcoming French release of Leon will have both the cut version of the film and the long version, but the long version will have forced French subtitles. Is this true? What is it with the French and forced subtitles on "original versions" of English language films? Is it a law in France that obliges them to do that? It might be better to buy the just announced UK BD release...
There won't be any forced subs on this one.
Some French editions only offer French subs because the companies which release them only have the rights to release them in France so there is a competition issue. But I can't see why the subs are sometimes forced, like they are on TF1 video blu-rays.
PS: it pisses me off too, as I'm French and always watch my movies with Engish tracks and sometimes English subs. That's why I never bought a TF1 Video release or some of the Canalplus relases with only French subs. I usually import these titles.
If I understand correctly, the forthcoming French release of Leon will have both the cut version of the film and the long version, but the long version will have forced French subtitles. Is this true? What is it with the French and forced subtitles on "original versions" of English language films? Is it a law in France that obliges them to do that? It might be better to buy the just announced UK BD release...
The cut version is the theater version here in the USA correct? Also, what does the uncut version have that makes it different?
So I finally found a new copy of this Leon disc, from Gaument in France. Says regions A, B, C - won't play in either of my blu ray players or my PS4. Region A. So annoyed... anybody heard of this being as issue? What would you do? I emailed the company, lets see what they say but.. it is an out of print title.
So I finally found a new copy of this Leon disc, from Gaument in France. Says regions A, B, C - won't play in either of my blu ray players or my PS4. Region A. So annoyed... anybody heard of this being as issue? What would you do? I emailed the company, lets see what they say but.. it is an out of print title.
Maybe I'm missing something, but is there some value to the 2009 French BD? The 2015 4K remastered US disc seems to blow it out of the water:
Hi so im guessing as normal no English subs ? cant belive there gone be doing Nikita will that be a remastered ? that is one movie that has been long over due.Fingers crossed it might be heading to UK ?
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Leon (Luc Besson)
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