31. The Professional (1994)




Roger's Rating :


Should be :


Roger gave this great movie a Thumbs Down. He said in his review ".. and if The Professional doesn't work with anything like the power of La Femme Nikita, it is because his heroine is 12 years old, and we cannot persuade ourselves to ignore that fact. It colors every scene, making some unlikely and others troubling."
Roger was troubled by the age of Natalie Portman's character and the position she found herself in, and I can understand that. There is of course something strange about Mathilda's and Leon's relationship. They are two people who have lived horrible, lonely lives and have now found each other.
The movie has some great performances from Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman and Danny Aiello. I agree that the movie is way over the top, but I think that is one of the things that makes it work. The movie is edgy, exciting and disturbing. The movie had a comic book style to it that worked for me.
Other people seem to like it even better than I do. It has a 8.6 rating on IMDB (#34 overall) and a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

At The Movies Review



1 comment:

Tempas said...

The worldwide release of this film (titled "Leon") had a few scenes in it that made the relationship between the protagonists even more troubling. I actually prefer the US edit, as I think it has a better balance, and am surprised it distracted Ebert as much as it did.

Ebert misfires often when the movie treads against his expectations, and he's unwilling to let said expectations go.


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