Léon: The Professional

I know this film gets a lot of hate because of the... Odd... Relationship between Leon and Mathilda. Made worse by the context of the director impregnating a 16 year old girl at 32. While not technically illegal in France, still not within most peoples moral code However, this remains one of my favourite movies. I'm not trying to "separate the art from the artist" and pretend that it doesn't matter what the director did, because in my opinion it does. Leon and Mathildas relationship is obviously inspired by Bessons real life relationship with him and his wife. This was done tastefully at least, with Leon not being receptive of Mathildas "love". So as to make it not a weird pedophilic film, but merely the director putting his real life experiences into his art. Which, whether you condone him or not, is what art should be about. And he did a fantastic job of it as well. Natalie Portman killed it, at just 12 years old as well. I was in tears multiple times almost exclusively from her performances. The script is great quality with lots of impactful moments, and the story itself is gripping. A lot of wholesome and charming moments from Leon himself, making you feel sympathy for a man who is a killer. I like how this is not just a generic John Wick esque movie where there is a hitman who kills people. The only taste of that we get is the beginning and the end. The rest of it is off screen, which is good for me as I don't tend to like action sequences that don't serve a purpose whilst being uninspired. Despite being a gritty and emotional story, it has its moments of humour as well. Around the middle where Leon takes Mathilda under his wing and there are plenty of scene of her training to be a 'cleaner' that come of as comical but also serve purpose by growing the relationship between Leon and Mathilda. I specifically like the scene where she's using the sniper rifle and we don't know she's just shooting paintballs till the end. Great tension build up making you think that she's about to shoot a random man with a funny twist. The ending I thought could be better, my only critique. I wish Leon didn't die, maybe that's just because I love him so much and I know it can't always be a fairytale ending but it felt a little predictable. Doesn't affect my score of the movie thought since it was still done excellently, I just don't like what it actually is. Overall I could go on and on abothis movie. I watched it on a plane and now I've bought the directors cut.