Luc Besson plants a hitman in a New York tenement and waters him with a 12-year-old’s grief—boom, a neon-noir flower blooms. Jean Reno’s Léon is a monk of murder: milk mustaches, AGFA sunglasses, and a houseplant he loves more than people. Then Mathilda (Natalie Portman, 12 going on 40) knocks, orphaned by Gary Oldman’s coked-up DEA psycho Stansfield—think Beethoven on bath salts, screaming “EVERYONE!” while popping pills like Tic Tacs.

The chemistry? Electric. Léon teaches headshots; Mathilda teaches him to read, cry, and maybe love. Eric Serra’s score swoons and stings—accordion sighs between silenced .22 pops. That lobby shootout? Poetry in slow-mo blood. Besson keeps it raw: no fairy-tale romance, just two broken souls sharing a fire escape, trading root beer for revenge.

Oldman chews scenery like it’s gum; Reno underplays till your heart cracks. Portman’s debut is fearless—tears, tantrums, and a “This is from Mathilda” that still chills. A love letter to outcasts, wrapped in gun oil and greenhouse mist. Timeless, tender, and totally lethal.

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