Saw Leon, The Professional. It was very good. It was a tricky combination of bad-ass action and a touching story of parenting (maybe.) The story is as follows: young Mathilda's horrible family is killed by crooked cops. Fearing for her life, she hides in the apartment of her neighbor, Leon, who happens to be a professional hit man. They (blarg) cause mutually beneficial growth in each other, Mathilda having a caring care-taker for possibly the first time in her life and Leon having to nurture and thus becoming something more than a death-machine.
Mathilda is at first confused by her foster-parent's profession but, fed a steady diet of cartoons and domestic violence, quickly comes to accept it and is soon begging him to teach her. There's something interesting here, in the effortless way she transitions from merely streetwise to stone-cold deadly. Is she supposed to be the troubled latch-key kid of the 90s? Are we to believe that the only thing preventing the youth from becoming stone-cold killers is who they know? She is shown watching TV, but only Transformers. Not the most compelling cartoon if the film did indeed want to suggest that she has a deeply troubled mind. It may well be that Mathilda doesn't appreciate the reality of what Leon does. She accompanies him to hits, even helping out, but <spoiler>doesn't ever actually kill anyone, though she is obviously ready and willing.</spoiler> At the very least, there is something about desensitization here.
Mathilda later declares her sexual love for Leon. I don't know how seriously I'm supposed to take this development, but I chose to believe she's misinterpreting her feelings of respect and admiration for him. Her behavior towards him is very uncomfortable at parts (she sings him Happy Birthday Mr President, ala Marilyn Monroe.) and her clothing is kind of precocious but Leon (thank god) never acts on her advances. The level of seriousness in her love is left fairly ambiguous however, which makes the movie feel slightly dangerous and interesting. It gives the non-action-oriented viewer a little mystery to puzzle over as the film progresses. As I say, I choose to interpret her love as misinterpreted love for a father-figure but there's room for debate (of the strongly oh-aren't-we-edgy variety.)
At any rate, I was captivated by the film and found it entertaining enough to keep me awake through a post-caffeine crash. Good show.
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