Date Watched: October 4, 2010
Source: DVD
What a great movie. It’s about a 12-year-old girl who befriends a professional “cleaner” (read: assassin) after her family is wiped out by a rather insane DEA agent and his “army” of officers.
I don’t know why Natalie Portman always plays some disturbed, abused person, but she does it with some serious flair. She’s easily replaced Winona Ryder as the quirky, downtrodden, my-life-blows actress. Anyway, she plays the 12-year-old — I swear she hasn’t changed a bit — and as usual, she’s excellent. This poor girl, Mathilda, can’t freakin’ catch a break, and consequently, she’s a little twisted upstairs. She ends up believing she’s fallen in love with Léon… a grown man at the very least 20 years her senior… and that’s kind of creepy. But the odd thing is, the relationship they have is sort of sweet. I mean, he’s a hardened hitman who sleeps sitting up, and she’s this smart, sassy, beat-to-hell preteen girl. He avoids the whole in-love deal and protects her like a daughter, teaching her the craft of professional murder, at her insistance, in order for her to avenge the murder of her four-year-old brother.
The ending pissed me off and mushed my heart a little bit at the same time, which automatically means it was a successful ending. Good, but still pissed me off.
Worth the watch, definitely.
silvershamrock.wordpress.com 
Written in May 2010:
I’m really not sure why I hadn’t seen this before. When I like an actor, I have a habit of trying to watch everything that they’ve ever been in, and I’ve liked Gary Oldman and Jean Reno since I was a kid. Anyway, it’s not a cinematic masterpiece or anything, but I really enjoyed this movie. I’m always glad to get a dose of CRAZY GARY OLDMAN, and I loved Jean Reno and Natalie Portman’s characters, and the relationship between them. [Rating: 4 stars]