Reviewed: LEON - 20th Anniversary Edition...

Mathilda (Natalie Portman) lives in a squalid New York apartment block with a family that define dysfunction. When she returns from being sent out on errands she finds her entire fasmily - mother, father and younger brother - have just been murdered by a corrupt police-officer , Stansfield (Gary Oldman). She will be the next target unless she can keep her cool and somehow persuade the strange, quiet man who lives down the hall to pretend she lives there. He has no time for the people in his building and apparently lives a solitary life, minding his own business and expecting others to do the same. But against his better judgement he opens the door to young Mathilda and provides her a temporary sanctuary.  

It is a decision that will change both their lives... because 'Leon' (Jean Reno) is actually a hitman who has lost faith in the living (His only rule of the job: 'No women, no kids...')  and Mathilda is a survivor who now wants to know how to kill and exact revenge. It could be the start of a beautiful friendship. If they survive it.

As a film critic it's not unusual to see well over a hundred films a year. Therefore the number seen over an entire career to date is well into high four figures and beyond. So if a film is to make it into your all-time top ten, then it has to be something special. It has to deliver on a variety of levels, any one of which could have been fumbled and spoilt the finished article. Few movies make the grade and as the years pass, it often seems like many aren't even making the effort to do so.

So the release of a special Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Leon (or if you live Stateside  'The Professional') is something of a mixed blessing. A superb treat for the discerning action fan but also a dispiriting wake-up call to just how far thrillers and action outings have arguably fallen since. Because two decades on - Leon still gets EVERYTHING right.

Those twenty years whisk us back to a Natalie Portman in her feature film debut, still years away from the roles for which Leon would ultimately light the way (V for Vendetta, The Other Boleyn Girl, Black Swan and - if you must - the Star Wars prequels and Thor outings). Her delicate and steely Mathilda walked the line between pouty brat and doe-eyed innocent, just the wrong side of adolesence and yet, even then, possessing an undeniable screen presence and adult poise that was magnetic and somewhat disturbing for the adult viewer. Inferior casting would have sunk the enterprise, but Portman's Mathilda is no less a stellar performance than that of her veteran co-stars.

Leon demonstrates how much french actor Jean Reno has been criminally underused since. Though he remains a recognisable name to American audiences (his almost arbitrary US roles have often been the best things in medicore or formulaic fare such as Godzilla, Ronin and Mission Impossible) his best work comes from his European projects where the likes of  thrillers such as 22 Bullets and time-travel comedy franchise Les Visiteurs - and his original breakthroughs in The Big Blue and La Femme Nikita (both for Besson) - gave him far superior material. 

Gary Oldman's merciless corrupt cop is also a tour-de-force, swerving between and dancing along the borders of  cold, hard killer and pure crazy. Again, it's a pivotal role at a time when Oldman was searching out disparate characters and interesting directors and  came just a year after his role as Drexel Spivey in Tarantino's True Romance. The drugged-up cop gives Oldman the room to go to extremes, but never become SO cartoonish that he ceases to be scary.   Special mention should also go to Danny Aiello, a sturdy character actor in his own right, who appears in a much smaller, but nicely drawn role as Leon's only other 'friend' and associate. We've see far too little of him in recent years.

Leon is also prime Luc Besson material. Over the last few years Besson has stepped back more from directing and is more often to be found in a producing capacity or directing his own attention to more family-orientated fare. But Leon and La Femme Nikita are the two barrels of his superior action ouevre - an action director who knew when to go big and when less was more. This was a director makign a film, but writing the book.

Much copied and used by inferior or indebted  film-makers as their template, Leon has lost little of its impact in twenty years. Younger film-makers who have seen the likes of Kick Ass' Hit-Girl and Hanna may think that the current generation invented the wheel - or at least the adolescent avenger - but this is the film without which none of them would be here. Several years ago I asked Luc Besson if there was a chance of a follow-up. He told me it would never happen. Though it positively screams for a sequel in the modern era, it might be for the best to let this diamond in the rough stand alone and preserve its magic. 

If you don't own the film already, then this 20th Anniversary Special Edition Blu-ray in 'Steelbook' format is a must-have for any self-respecting fan of the genre.  Extras are limited to interviews with Jean Reno and composer Eric Serra, but you aren't counting the extras... you're buying this for the film itself which you get in both theatrical and Director's Cut on the blu-ray. 

Brilliant, clever, funny, sad and just a little bit beautiful, this is an unmissable milestone, a cinematic classic, a killer elite.

Released by StudioCanal and available from today. Steelbook RRP: £29.99 (Other formats available)