Luc Besson makes action easy to watch and its unlikely relationships surprisingly affecting. We rate him as a gifted genre director, with a substantial reservation about the sentimentality that makes violence seem so forgivable.
Fi1m perspective
In Léon: The Professional (1994), Jean Reno's quietness gives us a welcome pause from Gary Oldman's theatrical menace. Besson lets Oldman push hard, sometimes too hard, but knows the value of Reno holding back. We were moved by the bond between Reno and Natalie Portman, because his restraint lets the tenderness register without fuss. This is Besson working well: an improbable relationship made persuasive by the people playing it.
His first feature, Le Dernier Combat (1983), used minimal dialogue in a post-apocalyptic setting. Nikita (1990) established his interest in resilient action heroines, later revisited in Lucy (2014). With The Fifth Element (1997), he moved towards more elaborate science-fiction worlds. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) continued that expansion, but its preference for spectacle over a substantial story points to a limit in his filmmaking.
Thierry Arbogast's cinematography makes the violence in Léon difficult to look away from, which helps Besson past some unlikely plotting. It also makes cruelty too easy to enjoy. Dan Weil's production design gives the urban setting enough substance to make the shared life of a hitman and a child seem possible. That credibility is useful, but it cannot settle our discomfort with Besson's treatment of the child.
Sylvie Landra's editing is just as important to what works: she keeps the action moving without treating the relationship as a delay. The shifts between affection and brutality need that care. Éric Serra's music is less restrained, pressing for tenderness that Reno and Portman have already supplied. When Besson lets the score insist on how these two belong together, his sentimentality becomes difficult to accept. For a first encounter, we would choose Léon, with reservations that no amount of good acting can quite remove.
Biography
Luc Besson is a French filmmaker, screenwriter and director. He was born in Paris on 18 March 1959.
Besson wrote and directed La Femme Nikita (1990) and Léon: The Professional (1994). He is also known for directing and co-writing The Fifth Element (1997) and Lucy (2014), and for writing credits on the Taken (2008–2014) and Transporter (2002–2008) film series.
