Jean Reno makes a professional killer's attempts at kindness believable. We value that restraint, especially alongside Natalie Portman in Léon: The Professional, though repeated casting as brooding men risks giving him too little to do.
Fi1m perspective
In Léon: The Professional (1994), Jean Reno's killer takes in a child, and suddenly his ability to look after someone matters as much as his ability to kill. Reno makes that care seem unfamiliar to him. We were moved by his decision to shelter Mathilda because he plays kindness as something this man has to learn. Natalie Portman gives the child enough self-possession to hold her own beside him, while keeping her vulnerability clear. The actors make their need for one another credible, even when the circumstances strain belief.
The partnership with Luc Besson stretches back to Le Dernier Combat (1983), with The Big Blue (1988) establishing Reno as a leading actor in France. Nikita (1990) gave him Victor, the Cleaner, an early version of his taciturn hitman. The comedy of Les Visiteurs (1993) matters too, and should discourage anyone from treating his seriousness as his only useful quality. That French success came before Léon made him internationally recognisable.
Besson makes good use of that restraint in Léon, setting Reno beside Gary Oldman's much more insistent Norman Stansfield. Reno gives us a rest from the theatrical menace, and the quieter passages are worth waiting for. Yet Besson counts on our affection for Léon to make his occupation less troubling, while placing a child inside the violence. We find the film gripping, but its treatment of Mathilda remains a substantial reservation.
From the mid-1990s, he balanced French comedies and action films with Hollywood roles, including Mission: Impossible (1996), Ronin (1998) and The Da Vinci Code (2006). The risk is familiar typecasting: an imposing actor hired to play another brooding man, with little asked of him beyond looking capable. In Godzilla (1998), his presence is secondary to the spectacle, which is a poor use of what makes him interesting. Follow Léon with Les Visiteurs before deciding that solemn men with guns are all he has to offer.
Biography
Jean Reno, born Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez on 30 July 1948 in Casablanca, French Morocco, is a French and Spanish actor. He moved to France at the age of 17, studied drama at the Cours Simon school in Paris, and served in the French Army.
Reno established himself through collaborations with director Luc Besson, appearing in Le Dernier Combat (1983), La Femme Nikita (1990) as Victor the Cleaner, and Léon: The Professional (1994) as Léon Montana. He received César Award nominations for best supporting actor for The Big Blue (1988) and best actor for Les Visiteurs (1993) and Léon: The Professional (1994).
He has worked in numerous international productions, including Mission: Impossible (1996), Ronin (1998), Godzilla (1998), The Pink Panther (2006) and The Da Vinci Code (2006).
