Léon is a film about a man called Léon who can only sleep whilst dressed as Ringo Starr. He's also an assassin.

The film kicks off with the not-so-subtle murdering of an entire family, bar one young girl. The thing that struck me about this is how casual the whole thing is. The men that do it are supposedly linked to the police, but even so, they don't try and cover it up in any way. They just stroll in there dressed like hard men, shoot the place up, and then walk off. Surely that isn't in the handbook?

Some of the actors are absolutely horrible. There's a woman who sees her lover in a headlock with a knife at his throat and just doesn't seem arsed, and then there's a kid hiding under his bed with a big smile on his face while his entire family are shot to pieces around him. I appreciate that they didn't play a big part in the film, but you would think someone would ensure they were capable of playing the tiny role they did have to a good standard.

That aside, the main cast was very good. Jean Reno played Léon very well, though the character itself was a bit all over the place. Most of the time he seems like a nice guy, but there are occasions where he becomes either very childish or very professional. I think this was supposed to show a conflicted character, but it came off to me as inconsistent, because in most cases the sudden changes in personality were unprompted.

The big bad British guy is played by Gary Oldman, and very well. He stole the show in my eyes, and it's a shame we didn't see more of him throughout the film. Not just because he was brilliant, but because his character is never buffed out in the film. He's supposed to be involved with the police in some way, and this is important to the story, but it's not really explained in what capacity. And I would love to know which position in the police allows you to go murdering families and have a huge SWAT team at your beckon call.

Natalie Portman plays Matilda, the petite femme fatale (not yoghurt!) very well, but her character also suffers from inconsistency. Sometimes she's being very childish, like being stubborn and laughing at a piggy oven mit and playing dress-up, and then other times she acts very adult. Her age in the film is quite ambiguous, but at either end of the potential age spectrum, at least one aspect of her personality wouldn't fit. I also found the way she was sexualised in the film a bit weird. She says that she's 18, but it's kind of implied that she's lying. She certainly doesn't look it. And she didn't in 1994 either. But she would have been 13 when this film was made, and I just found it quite unusual to see such a young girl sexualised in the way that she is. It's not so overt that it's paedophilic, but it's definitely enough to make you question if Léon is willingly acting as a father figure or "more".

The film was littered with annoying little continuity bits and pieces and expositional dialogue which were mildly annoying. Things like the headmistress of a school explaining the entire back story of  their relationship over the phone, and Léon saying don't stand in front of the windows because of snipers and then standing in front of a window in the next room and not being shot to bits. Those things are a bit annoying. What's more annoying is when those kind of things play a bigger part in the story, such as someone threading an RPG through a tiny hole in a door, or Gary Oldman hiding in the exact right place on the off chance that Léon walks past. Those I can't forgive so easily.

On the whole, I thought it was a very good film. Brilliantly acted by the main cast, an interesting story that makes you think, and some very nice direction from Besson. My only gripes with it are minor. Go watch it.