Leon (film)

The main character is a professional killer Leon, who lives a secluded life in Little Italy , a district of New York . Most of the work comes from a mafioso named Tony ( Danny Aiello ). In his free time, Leon does gymnastics , takes care of his favorite flower ( Aglaonema ) in a pot, and sometimes goes to the movies.

One day he meets Matilda Lando, a teenage girl living in the neighborhood. She lives in a dysfunctional family. Matilda's father, Michael, incurs the fury of a group of corrupt police officers from the drug department. They paid him for possession of cocaine, but subsequently discovered that he had taken some of the drugs. Led by the head of the police group, Norman Stansfield, nicknamed Stan. Michael is given 24 hours to fix everything. Exactly one day later, the police come back and kill his whole family. Returning home and realizing what happened, Matilda rings the door of Leon. He lets her in, thereby saving her from the fate of her family.

Matilda discovers that Leon is a hired killer, and asks her to teach her the art of a killer: she longs to avenge the murder of her four-year-old brother, the only family member she loved. In gratitude, she offers Leon help in housekeeping. Leon hesitates, but, realizing that the girl has nowhere to go, she accepts her offer, and they begin to cooperate, slowly building their relationship in which Leon assumes the role of friend and father. As they go “to business,” Matilda confesses to Leon that he falls in love with him.

Matilda decides to hunt down Stansfield and follows him to his office in an attempt to kill him, but he turns out to be prudent and disarms her. At the same time, Leon returns home and, not finding Matilda, sees the note left by her, he breaks into Stansfield's office and rescues Matilda, simultaneously killing two of his subordinates.

Stansfield is furious to learn that Leon, in addition to killing his people and kidnapping Matilda, also shot his assistant Malki when he bought a shipment of drugs from the Chinese. He goes to Tony's mafioso in his grocery store and, threatening to kill his children, finds out where Leon lives. Soon, returning home from the grocery store, Matilda is confronted with special forces sent by Stansfield. They take her as a hostage and try to enter Leon’s apartment. Leon understands what is happening, kills most of the platoon, ambushes the police and forces them to release Matilda. When armed people again enter the apartment, Leon breaks through the wall, opening the entrance to a small ventilation shaft and lowering Matilda down it. Leon confesses to the girl that she also loves her, and she manages to leave before a grenade enters the apartment.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Leon disguises himself in the uniform of one of the killed commandos. He heads for the door, pretending to be a wounded cop. On the way out of the building, Stansfield sees him and realizes that this is Leon, and follows him; when Leon has only a few steps to go outside, Stansfield shoots him. Leon manages to give Stansfield a "gift from Matilda" - a check from a grenade. Expanding Leon's vest, Stansfield sees a whole bunch of grenades hanging on his chest. A powerful explosion takes place that blows part of the building and kills Stansfield.

Matilda goes to Tony, as Leon told her to do so in advance if something happened to him. Tony tells Matilda that she will not give her the condition Leon bequeathed to her until she reaches adulthood, and that she is better off returning to school. A girl is heading to a boarding school. The director restores Matilda among the students, having difficulty recognizing the story about the cause of the death of the parents. Matilda goes to the school garden with Leon's indoor plant, digs a hole and plants it. So she symbolically fulfills the desire expressed by Leon to "take root."

When selecting an actress for the role of Matilda, Besson rejected almost all the candidates from the first stage. At first, Natalie Portman was also on this list, but even before the trial the assistant director rejected her candidacy, believing she was too young - at that time she was only 10 years old ^[3] . After almost a year, Luke Besson, having not found a candidate for the role of Matilda, re-looked at the profiles and again invited Portman. As a result, Portman was sampled in March 1993 ^[4] . The director told her: Imagine that your whole family was killed, but you only feel sorry for your younger brother . The filmmakers knew that the girl grew up alone in the family, without brothers and sisters, but Portman immediately cried for real, so she was immediately approved.

Besson came up with the idea of ​​making Leon while he was working on his previous film Nikita (1990). In the third act of that film, Victor Cleaner (Jean Renault) deals with the aftermath of Nikita's failed mission. Besson saw the unrealized potential of this character and decided on this basis to create a separate story. Both Victor and Leon appear dressed in a long wool coat, dark glasses and knitted hats. The working title of the film was “Cleaner” (“Cleaner”).

There are two versions of the film: the regular version and the extended one, in which there are 25 minutes of additional scenes. It is also called "directing" (or "international"), but Luke Besson directing calls the regular version, and the second - the "extended version" ^[5] . For the first time the “extended version” was shown in cinemas in the summer of 1996 in France ^[6] .

Scenes ^[7] from the film shown in the extended version:

• Matilda tells Leon that she is 18 years old (which is a lie);
• Matilda threatens to shoot herself and plays Russian roulette , wanting to find out Leon’s true feelings for her: “I want love or death”;
• Training Matilda in the skills of a hired killer (gluing a door eye with chewing gum) and invading a drug dealer’s apartment;
• A trip to the restaurant to "celebrate" the first "case", where Matilda gets drunk with champagne and tries to kiss Leon;
• A joint trip to Tony when Leon says that they will work with Matilda together;
• A series of joint sweeps of drug dealers in their own apartments according to a proven scheme. After retaliatory shots from behind the door of the next apartment, Leon throws a grenade there and hands Matilda a check from her, calling it “Trick with the Ring”;
• A conversation in which Matilda invites Leon to have sex, but he refuses and tells the story of his unhappy love, which made him leave Italy at the age of 19 and move to New York ;
• Matilda puts Leon to sleep on the bed (he had a professional habit of sleeping in an armchair) and lays down beside herself.

The music for the film was written by the French composer Eric Serra , who often worked with films by Luc Besson. During the final credits, the song “ Shape of My Heart ” is performed by Sting .

On the Rotten Tomatoes website , the film's rating is 71% based on 59 critical reviews (42 positive and 17 negative).