The rifle is the first weapon you learn how to use, because it lets you keep your
distance from the client. The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can
get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn.
Léon (Jean Reno) is a hitman living a solitary life in New York City's Little
Italy. Most of his work comes from a mafioso named Tony (Danny Aiello), who operates from the "Supreme
Macaroni Company" retail store. Leon spends his idle time engaging
in calisthenics, nurturing a
houseplant that early on he
describes as his "best friend", nd (in one
scene) watching old Gene Kelly
musicals.
On a particular day on his way home, he sees Mathilda Lando (Natalie Portman), a
twelve-year-old girl with a black
eye and smoking a cigarette, living with her dysfunctional family in an
apartment down the hallway. Mathilda's father (Michael Badalucco) attracts the ire of corrupt DEA agents, who have been
paying him to store cocaine in his
residence, after they discover that he has been stealing some of the drugs for
himself. A cadre of DEA agents storm the building, led by a ragged and drug-addicted
Norman "Stan" Stansfield (Gary
Oldman), murders Mathilda's entire family, missing her only because she was
out shopping when they arrived. When she returns with the groceries she was sent
to buy and notices the carnage, she calmly continues down the hallway past the
open door of her family's apartment, and receives sanctuary from a reluctant
Léon.
Mathilda, who soon discovers that Léon is a hitman, begs him to become her
caretaker, and to teach her his skills as a "cleaner": she wants to avenge the
murder of her four-year-old brother, the only member of her family that she
actually loved. In return, she offers herself as a maid and teacher, remedying
Léon's illiteracy. Léon hesitantly accepts her offer and
the two begin working together, slowly building an emotional attachment, with
Léon becoming a friend and father figure. As they work together, Mathilda
admits to Léon several times that she is falling in love with him, but he says
nothing back.
As Mathilda increases her confidence and experience, she locates Stansfield,
follows him to his office in the DEA building in an attempt to kill him, only to
be ambushed by Stansfield in a bathroom. Léon, discovering her intentions after
reading a note left for him by Mathilda, rushes to the building and rescues her,
shooting two of Stansfield's men in the process.
Stansfield is enraged that what he calls the "Italian hitman" has gone rogue
and is killing his men. He confronts Tony and threatens him into surrendering
Léon's whereabouts. One day, as Mathilda returns home from grocery shopping, an
NYPD ESU
(Emergency Service Unit) team, sent by Stansfield, takes her hostage and
attempts to infiltrate Léon's apartment. Léon ambushes the ESU team and takes
one of their members hostage, rapidly bartering him for Mathilda's freedom. As
they slink back into the apartment, Léon creates a quick escape for Matilda as
he reassures her and tells her that he loves her moments before they come for
him.
In the chaos that follows, Léon sneaks out of the apartment building
disguised as a wounded ESU officer, almost unnoticed save for Stansfield who
recognizes him and silently sneaks up and shoots him from behind. Looming over
the dying Léon, Stansfield jeers him haughtily. However just before he gives
out, Léon places an object in Stansfield's hands, which he explains is "from
Mathilda". Opening his hands, Stansfield recognizes it as the pin from a grenade
and rips open Léon's vest to discover several now-pinless grenades strung to his
chest. Stansfield lets out a brief and final quip "Oh, shit" right before a
massive explosion devastates them both.
Mathilda heads to Tony's place as she was instructed to do by Léon. Tony will
not give Mathilda more than a few dollars of the fortune Léon had amassed, which
was being held by Tony. His reasoning is that she is not old enough to receive
the large amount of money and that school should be her priority until she's
older. When Mathilda asks Tony to give her a 'job', and insists that she can
'clean' as Leon had, Tony sternly informs her that he 'ain't got no work for a
12-year-old kid!' Having nowhere else to go, she is then seen returning to
school using the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Readmitted
to the school Mathilda walks into a field with Léon's houseplant in hand, she
digs a hole and plants the houseplant in the grounds of the school, as she had
once promised Léon she would, "to give it roots."
Copyright(c) 2007
- 2025. All rights reserved.
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