Leon

What can you say about a film that has as its main character a man whose best friend is a houseplant and takes under his wing a 12-year-old orphan and teaches her the intricacies of ‘cleaning’? Think Luc Besson at his violent best, think La Femme Nikita (1990) and the role Jean Reno played in that film, move the location to New York where Reno plays the American based equivalent of Victor – Leone ‘Leon’ Montana a professional hit man, a job generally referred to in the trade as a ‘cleaner’, but one with ethics, he refuses to kill women and children.

 

The Hit Man....

....and his Apprentice.

Here we have an English language French relationship drama between a sad eyed lonely hit man and a 12 year, played in her feature film debut by the young Natalie Portman, who wants nothing more than to avenge her 4 year old brother’s death at the hands of the psychotic killer Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman) one of cinema’s great villains. It’s when Stansfield, a very bent police officer, visits Mathilda’s family apartment to resolve a problem with some missing drugs that he and his men kill her father, stepmother and sister, and her wee brother during a particularly bloody confrontation. The only reason she is not in at the time of the visit is that she is out shopping. On her return she continues past her flat, that is now full of bodies and gunmen, to Leon’s apartment on the same floor, after some debate he lets her in and consequently saves her life and changes his.

 

A really nasty piece of work!!

Luc Besson wrote and directed Leon (1994) as an affecting comic book type fantasy crime thriller where every body involved is in top filmic form. This movie that has lost none of its appeal since its original release over the 20 year’s ago. I can’t imagine that most film lovers would have never have seen the film but I can assure you that this riveting action movie is well worth your revisit.

The Big Blue (Le Grand Bleu)

Another example of the Cinema du look movement that was established in France in the 1980’s was Luc Besson’s 1988 movie The Big Blue. Besson was credited with two other films made under the movement’s heading, Subway (1985) and Nikita (1990). This method of filmmaking is said to favour style over substance with spectacle taking preference over narrative The Big Blue is certainly no exception to this rule.

The films title refers to the sea, which we are told is a mysterious, magical but dangerous place where two friends since childhood, Jacques Mayol and Enzo Molinari, take part in the extreme sport of competitive Free Diving where competitors attempt to attain great depths, times or distances while suspending their breathing. Besson’s screenplay, although fictional, was inspired by real life Frenchman Mayol and an Italian diver called Enzo Maiorca. Jean-Marc Barr, an actor who has appeared in six movies by Danish director Lars von Trier, plays Mayol while Moroccan born Jean Reno, who has had a long and successful professional relationship with Luc Besson, plays Enzo. American TV and film star Rosanna Arquette play the romantic interest.

Much of the film was shot on the beautiful Greek island of Amorgos and coupled with Carlo Varini’s cinematography makes it a stunning watch. Although this English speaking French film was not very successful in the USA it was the most financially successful film shown in France in the 1980’s where it played continually for a year. This lightweight, but enjoyable comedy, is something that the French do very well. But it certainly divided the critics see what you think!

The beautiful Island of Amorgos.

Tais Toi (Shut Up)

A French comedy crime caper with three titles Tais Toi (2003) is the original, Shut Up is the English translation and it’s also known as Ruby & Quentin after the two main characters. Quentin, played with complete abandon by Gerard Depardieu, is a small time inept crook who has a daft smile and yearns for a friendship; he ends up in a prison cell with the murderous Ruby (Jean Reno), who plays Hardy to Depardieu’s Laurel, someone he imagines will make a great friend. Ruby on the other hand is a hardened criminal who has been having an affair with his boss’s wife, now deceased! Ruby steals the proceeds of a robbery carried out by his ex-boss Vogel as a sort of pay back.  With Quentin in tow he now has to escape from prison and keep one step a head of Vogel, the Paris Police and the prison psychologist!

Directed and written by Francis Veber, its in a similar vain to the three original Taxi films and Besson’s Subway (1985) in that the script has the same madcap humour played solely for fun and on that level Tais Toi really works.  As a bonus you get some great Paris location shots from the Italian cinematographer Luciano Tovoli who worked on Veber’s best known films The Closet (2001) and Le Diner de Cons (1998) and has recently finished photographing Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D (2012) which to date has not been released in the UK.

Madcap humour from Reno and Depardieu.

   

Nikita.

Nikita.

A brilliant and pleasurable piece of nonsense from the great visual stylist of French cinema. Nikita (1990), now over twenty years old, still manages to provide a diverting couple of hours of action, humour and entertainment that has not dated one bit. Luc Besson’s Franco-Italian high-octane thriller involves a nihilistic punk whose life revolves around crime, drugs and violence. During a robbery of a chemist owned by the father of one of raiders Nikita kills a policeman. She is arrested and sentenced to death by lethal injection. When she awakes she thinks she has gone to heaven but is actually in a secret government institution that have faked her death with the intention of training her to be a deadly assassin for the French authorities.

Jean Reno gives a new meaning to an acid trip!

The ex Mrs. Besson Anne Parillaud plays what is probably her most famous role as the 1990’s version of Stieg Larssons Lisbeth Salander, Nikita. Turkish born French actor Tcheky Karyo is Bob the man that is tasked with training our slender heroine and famous French actor Jean-Hughes Anglade plays Marco the man who unknowingly falls in love with a female assassin. The most memorable role is the cameo played by regular Besson collaborator Jean Reno as Victor ‘The Cleaner” a larger than life Besson character. Well worth a revisit.

The original poster.