Leon is Luc Besson's profoundly acclaimed thriller revolving around the unusual relationship between veteran hitman Leon (Reno) and his unconventional apprentice Mathilda (Portman). This unorthodox relationship creates an abundance of emotionally intense scenes throughout the film, notably the excellent finale. Reno is expertly cast as hollow, emotionally stricken hitman Leon, whilst Portman succeeds as vengeful youth Mathilda. However, Oldman delivers the most enthralling performance as sadistic, relentless DEA agent Stansfield. Leon is also propelled by wonderful cinematography and music decisions.

This is one of my favourite films and Natalie Portman is one of my favourite Actresses. Not really finding out that she played this role until a later date. Story Cinematography was great!

It is one of the most overrated movies of all times. I don't mean it's bad, but it's not as great as people claim it to be. It is a good and a little different type of crime drama. But, speaking of 90s crime dramas and mob films, "Goodfellas", "Pulp Fiction", "The Usual Suspects", "Se7en", "Reservoir Dogs", etc are much better than this movie, at least for me. But still a lot better majority of crime movies today. The main theme - the relationship between Leon and Mathilda - mostly satisfying and very well written and directed. That is something I really loved. But at the same time, a part of that relationship is quite a mixed bag for me. (SPOILERS) Mathilda falls in love with Leon and asks him for intimacy. As much as I admire Besson's decision, it feels unusually weird. Plus, Natalie Portman was just around 12 or 13 years old, and there were some perverted shots of her in the movie that I didn't really want to see. The Leon-Mathilda plotline, except for this part, was quite good. And which means almost more than a half of the movie was good. Mathilda becoming a hitman plotline - the motivation felt a little forced to me, her training sessions were finely entertaining but ..... where and how did it really end? More than becoming a real hitman (probably she did in the montage sequence) we only get to see her do some crazy teenager stuffs. And, one of my biggest issues - Mathilda wanting a revenge on Stan plotline. It would have been a better movie if this one and the first plotline I mentioned were equally a major part of the movie. But, the movie deviates from this a lot. We get reminded about this part when Gary Oldman shows up. This was one of the main parts of the plot, but didn't really feel like one. Also, Stan is a simple crazy psycho-ish villain with nothing much of depth to him. The first plotline worked for me in the way it did, mostly because of the amazing performances of Jean Reno and Natalie Portman. They were very great. Leon was written very carefully. And ........ Gary Oldman ......... I love the man as an actor, he is amazing in most of the his movies I have watched. May be his performances in "Darkest Hour" and as Commissioner Gordon in Dark Knight Trilogy are my favorite Gary Oldman performances. I haven't seen all of his movies, but this is by far the worst Gary Oldman performance I have ever seen. A part of it is to be blamed on Besson, but nothing can be taken away from Oldman. He simply hams up the performance. On the whole, it's a very enjoyable movie and has it's goods and has it's flaws. Not bad at all. It's good. But it feels like hypocrisy to have this movie as the 30th highest rated movie on IMDb. It gets a "B" and a "6.7/10".

Leon is not perfect but it has so many great moments that all its flaws can be forgiven. It's a movie that really should not be missed, unless you are concerned with its amorality. And don't be - Leon is less violent than many action movies and the unusual relationship between the main characters is handled mostly with genuine feeling and tact.