Leon Thriller Analysis

Cast:

Jean Reno
Gary Oldman
Natalie Portman
Danny Aiello
Peter Appel

The film Leon opens up to a pan across the city showing water and trees which gives a natural adyllic feeling, then the camera carries onto landscapes and a zoom int0 the city and the camera moves along the roads. The camera then enters into a small shop and moves through the door to a dark room, and the light is focused on the table where two men are sitting. One man is shown by the camera, and he is discussing a job for the man opposite him. The man opposite him is never shown, but parts of him are like his dark glasses and hands which are wrapped around a glass of milk.

Then the shot goes to a hotel and shows gangster type characters and a large beefy man. The opening shows all the classic gangster qualities like accents, cigarettes, guns and knifes and dark shades.

You first see Leon through dark shades, but his identity remains hidden. The opening shows a lot of shots of the spiral staircases which are linked to mystery because you can hear the person coming but don't who it is.

The opening scene is of some gangster's staying at a expensive hotel, and dealing with drugs and the beefy character having sex with a typical blonde bimbo.

Leon kills the gangster's men and he does it in a simple way, he doesn't reveal his identity and he shows real cleverness. The camera shots show how Leon comes into the room and how he kills them but never shows who he is.

There is a moment in the opening where the beefy character is trying to escape Leon and Leon has trapped him in his hotel room. The gangster is backing away into another room, then Leon comes from the darkness revealing his face and holding a knife to the mans neck. The characters are the focus on the screen and they are both covered in darkness.

After the killing you see Leon go back to his apartment. This introduces another character called Matilda who is a young girl and this brings innocence into the movie and she is also looking down a spiral staircase. The young girl is then shown to be beaten by her father.