Rating: 
Summary: One of Luc Besson's best if not THE best
Review: "The Professional" is a thoroughly professional production in every respect. Great directing, superb casting, absorbing and original story, splendid photography and musical score - plenty of believable tense situations. Oldman is out of this world as the mad, drug-sodden corrupt cop. High-class violence all the way. Don't miss this one!
Rating:
Summary: Explosive from begining to the credits.
Review: At first I was reluctant to watch this, but finally my friend talked me into it. This movie is too good to be put into words, or at least words that make sense. The action is awesome, the cast is great, and the story is very unsually cool.
Rating:
Summary: This movie has it all.
Review: This movie is simply put brilliant. The 12-year-old Natalie Portman acts amazingly natural and realistic, especially in the scene where she knocks onto Leon's door, and begs him to open it. The white light in that scene is a sign of the true craftsmanship of Luc Besson. Everything is very dramatic, without giving you an artificial feeling about the movie. Her emotions look so natural; she automatically gives you a full understanding of the situation. I've never seen a movie before with a child having a major part, which didn't 'put me out' of the movie. But the appearance of Natalie Portman (Matilda) in Leon (also known as The Professional) was so enormously overwhelming, you didn't question the potentials of the actress 'Natalie Portman', you stepped right into the world of Matilda. I find the character of Matilda the most intriguing of the whole movie. She's very tough, although she's still childish and fragile. Jean Reno is the perfect interpreter for the Leon part, he kept me glued to my seat. Leons personality is very simple, honest and straightforward, which makes you develop a feeling of sympathy for him. Gary Oldman is the ultimate bad guy, especially teamed up with Luc Besson (like in The Fifth Element). Gary Oldman's appearance in Leon was just perfect, everything fitted. His furious rages were brilliant. Especially in the scene where he takes a pill, and says: "I like these calm moments before the storm, they remind me of Beethoven", you feel the tension building up there. The camera shot from above in this sequence is perfect, its pure joy to watch this. The music of the movie is (for lack of better words) brilliant. Again, everything fits. Eric Serra decided to use a lot of classical influences, combined with some digital mixing stuff and northern African influences. The sound was PERFECT. Everything synched, his music contributed a lot to the emotional load of the movie. The soundtrack CD (which is also available at Amazon.com) is worth it, especially after you've seen the movie, all the scenes will flash by while listening to the music. Even without any knowledge of the movie, the soundtrack would still be quite impressive. Btw, I advice buying the wide screen version of the Professional (or the DVD of course), because the beautiful cinematography comes out better on a wide format.
Rating:
Summary: The best movie I have ever seen!
Review: This movie has done one of the strangest things to me. It hasmade me cry every time I watch it. I am a guy and I don't cry a lotbut it's just too good a movie. The music is so well matched that it rivals Star Wars. My parents who only rate action movies as "entertaining" or "horrible" rated this as "an excellent movie". I highly recommend this film to anyone. Even the weak at heart who don't like bloody scenes will remember this movie by the touching story. This movie also has some of the best acting ever. Academy Award winners almost never do this well. Jean Reno is awesome and protrays the heartless "cleaner" nicely. Gary Oldman looks more evil than Darth Maul. The real hotshot is Natalie Portman. She is so good in this that those people at the Academy Awards are idiots for not even nominating her. She will have a great future. Now she's 18 and is not hot, but thermo-nuclear HOT. Whatever you do, don't listen to what critics have to say about this. Movie critics like Roger Ebert tend to focus more on stuff like screenplay and character development and don't really give a damn about the story and a good movie. I found that critics didn't like this movie, and people who watched it did.
Rating:
Summary: The Director's Cut is much better, but it's still good
Review: This is one of the best motion picture I've ever seen before (The Director's Cut). The normal version is very good to, but it doesn't go really deep in the characters, like the director's cut. Anyway, this is a must see.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie with an up and coming actress, Natlaie Portman
Review: I feel that this movie ventures over to the dark side of everyday life and has a great accompanying cast to take us there. First off, the hitman, Jean Reno did a wonderful job and a believable job as the hitman who starts to care for a young girl. Mathilda, played by Natalie Portman, was a great role for this young and rising star to play, it shows us that she can pull off any role that she puts her mind to. Finally the bad guy, the villain, Gary Oldman plays a wonderful bad guy, the guy you just love to hate, and he pulls it off so well, he always does great at the role of the villain. On top of this all-star cast is a great director, Luc Besson, who also directed a great movie "The 5th Element" which was great for the same reasons. But to get back on topic, I would watch Natalie Portman's career very closely because I have the feeling she will amaze up in the not to distant future.
Rating:
Summary: What a brilliant film!
Review: This is the first film I'd seen featuring Jean Reno and what a film it is. It's fairly slow moving after the first 10 mins or so, but what a climax to the end. It leaves you on the edge of your seat and has a good twist at the end. All I can say is buy this - you won't be disappointed! This film definately rates in my all time top 5 films. Why was it called "The Professional" in the US though? It was called Leon over here
Rating:
Summary: An Incredibly Touching Portrayl
Review: This was one of the best movies I've ever seen. I loved how Jean Reno's character, Leon, who is a 'bad guy', is able to be shown as a person, and I was able to really care about this professional killer. The relationship between he and 12-year-old Mathilda is truely touching, and this was a movie with one of the saddest endings I have ever seen.
Rating:
Summary: Better to get the Director's Cut
Review: This movie is excellent but too much important pieces of the movie was cut out.. be sure to get the director's cut to see the whole true masterpiece of this movie, and to get better sence into the movie, because damn, the edited version lost alot of sence when it was cut so much.. so many key scenes were taken out, why? i don't know.. the movie truely should be over 2 hours long but due to cut version, and renaming it (originally just LEON instead of THE PROFESSIONAL)... i think i saw the international version first, all uncut, and then borrowed the american version and lots of scenes were cut.. the first time i saw it it was titled just "LEON", so i believe i saw the international version of it.. and oh boy, you're missing alot with the american version.. take my word..
Rating:
Summary: A true masterpiece for all to see! except for ONE thing
Review: The first time I saw this movie, I saw it on TV, and it just blew me away.. the movie was so excellent and addicting.. so i rented the video to watch it again, only to find out that the american version edited ALOT out.. the original version i saw was well over 2 hours, the american one is a little less than 2.. some key scenes were taking out, like the scene where Leon and Matilda went out together on a hit, Matilda put on the purple dress Leon bought, and when Matilda and Leon were talking in the bed.. and i believe an earlier scene dealing with the grenade pin that happened at the end.. but overall, this version is still REALLY excellent, and i HIGHLY recommend it to anyone and everyone.
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