92 - Leon: The Professional

    A hitman takes in a young girl whose family has been killed.  She decides that she wants to follow in his footsteps.
    The first thing that I’ve noticed about this movie is the title.  Many sources seem to call it Leon: The Professional.  IMDB says that the original title was Leon.  The title card of the movie calls it The Professional.
    Anyway, it’s an interesting movie, but I somehow felt unsatisfied at the end.  There’s a moodiness to it, which is engrossing, but there’s also mix of other elements that feel like it’s a bit of a hack movie.
    A good comparison would be The Boondock Saints, which was released five years later.  Both of these movies revel in a degree of violence, they use some colorful characters, the protagonist is strangely captivating.  But this movie also borrows little bits from Taxi Driver.
    What drives the movie is a curiosity.  You want to know how things are going to turn out.  That can usually make a pretty good movie.  But here, I just felt like the ending didn’t accomplish anything.  I saw most of the ending coming, and I felt like the movie avoided one of more interesting possible directions by making Mathilda not kill anyone.  Even the action isn’t all that interesting.  It doesn’t live up to the promise established at the start of the movie.
    I know this sounds like I didn’t like it.  I did enjoy it, and it’s certainly a worthwhile viewing.  But it just isn’t as good as I thought it would be.