Plot: Leon is a skilled hitman who lives a quiet and solitary life in Little Italy whose only friends are his houseplant and a young girl named Mathilda who lives with her dysfunctional family in an apartment next door to Leon's. But when Mathilda's family is murdered by corrupt DEA agents lead by Norman Stansfield, Leon rescues her from getting killed as well, and gives her shelter. She quickly learns that he is a hitman and asks him to take care of her and teach her his skills in making hits in the hopes of using them to avenge the death of her little brother, who was the only person in her family that she cared about.
Dang. What a movie. Now I'll start off stating the obvious reason that this would be good; such as the directing, cinematography, and the all around story, all of which are great. But there a couple of things that stand out the most for me as well as probably most people who have seen this film. The first thing is what made me the most interested to see this movie, and that's the fact that this was Natalie Portman's very first film. And holy cow is it remarkable that this is the film that started her career and that she gave such a performance for her first film. Mathilda is a young girl who goes through this serious stuff throughout the movie and Portman does a beautiful job at acting out what this character does in all of these scenes. And think about it for a moment, we're talking about the actress whom most people commonly know her best as being Padme Amidala in the Star Wars prequels. It also makes it remarkable that she made a performance that big at such a young age long before she gave us her stunning performance in Black Swan. The second thing that seems to stand out the most is Gary Oldman as Norman Stansfield. Looking more into how people felt about the character, a lot of sites such as RottenTomatoes and Hollywood.com have viewed Stansfield as one of the greatest villains in cinema. I don't know for a fact if I would go that far, but even if I would disagree with people viewing him that way, there's no denying that Gary Oldman is giving us some of his best into this role, and it's often fun to see what he's doing. Then there's the third and probably biggest thing that stands out about this film: the realtionship between Leon and Mathilda. Their relationship in retrospect is very unusual, which makes it both very original, and yet occasionally uncomfortable. Leon and Mathilda work off each other very well and it is really nice to see them try to help out each other whether it is to entertain each other or Leon teaching Mathilda on how to be a hitman. But it also comes with some moments that where just plain uncomfortable. Now I want to point out that nothing really happens between the two characters. Sorry if that counts as spoilers for any of you, but if you are like me and you would feel uncomfortable about some of the scenes between the main characters, do know now before you see the movie that nothing actually happens between them. But regardless, it's still entertaining in an unusual way to see these characters with their different traits and personalities work off each other that generally makes this movie.
And that's my review for Loan: The Professional. I know I didn't really talk a whole lot about how it is as a film in general, but this particular film does seem to be one that, while it really is a good film with it's directing and cinematography and stuff, what makes it stand out are the three main actors and their characters, for the reason I have talked about. It's a great, memorable film that if you haven't seen it yet but would like to, I recommend it.
Rating: 90%
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