Leon Analysis

‘Leon’ is a thriller that uses crime and drama to withhold its audience. It is about a professional assassin that rescues a teenage girl after her parents were killed in a police raid. It was directed by Luc Besson in 1994.

The opening shot is unlike a typical thriller, it is a point of view shot to help set the location and general feel of the movie, the fact you have taken the point of view of a character makes you instantly feel you are part of the movie however leaves you with mystery as you are unsure as to who’s perspective you are taking.

The next scene uses extreme close ups, these are not commonly known to be used in thrillers unless showing a very important section of information, even though it is an extreme close up, the use of the dark lighting helps mask the appearance of the character, this helps keep a mysterious essence to him, he is also wearing glasses to hide his identity and create a sense him having little or no emotion. This scene helps set up the story line as Leon is given his task, this indicates he must kill someone, however you are not told why, this helps keep the audience at a third person perspective on the plot.

In the next scene Leon takes one of the guards hostage, he uses him as a means of communication to the targeted man, he does this by holding a gun in his mouth and getting him to contact the target through the radio, this shows how he is a very strong character and he can manipulate people to do what he wants through his own techniques. When asked who he was, the only word that was used was ‘serious’, this helps keep the viewer still out of the loop and helps keep the tension high. Even after the guard does what Leon wants of him, he shoots him, this shows how he is a very cold hearted character and is determined to get his job done, this ease of killing shows how he might have done this before or it might be his job. They have then used a straight cut to a close up of the target looking extremely worried, this show of close up emotion helps contrast the calmness nature of Leon’s killing.

They have used a close up shot of the elevator floors, this helps build tension as Leon gets higher up the building and closer to the target, the cuts in shots are then becoming more frequent, this build up using faster cuts is much like what you would find in a conventional thriller. When the elevator reaches the top floor, the camera is set to fully focus on the elevator as everyone in the scene is looking towards it, as it opens it reveals the dead body of the guard; this shows how Leon is a smart  and a humorous killer and knows exactly what he is doing.

Throughout the whole scene you do not see Leon at all, this is very unconventional of a thriller as you can’t relate to the main character, mainly because you have seen little of him and heard very little about him.

The main props used in this scene are the guns, the fact they aren’t little hand guns show the audience that Leon is a serious enemy to these people and they want to get rid of him as soon as possible.

When Leon has killed all the guards protecting the target, they have added in diegetic sound of a heartbeat, this noise gets louder and faster as Leon gets closer, this effectively builds tension. The sound then completely stops, letting the audience know something is about to happen, that something being that Leon is right behind the target with a gun pressed to his back, however Leon remains hidden, you only see what you have already seen, keeping to their unconventional style.