“The Professional” is a mad Franco-American melange. Leon is a recycling of the old French existential gangster, a morose killer who lives alone, sports shades and a stubble, drinks milk, can’t read or write and loves only his houseplant. Old-man is a sadistic psycho who scarfs poppers before he kills (recalling Dennis Hopper in “Blue Velvet”). Guns bang symphonically, blood flows torrentially, Reno underacts Frenchily and Oldman overacts like James Woods afflicted by rabies. And Besson’s manipulation of newcomer Portman approaches kiddie porn. See huge close-ups of her precociously beautiful face, esthetically bruised and bloodied. Glom her in a T shirt, provocatively poked by her budding breasts. Watch her shot from above on abed. legs akimbo like a mini-Sharon Stone. Of course love (fatherly–uh, yeah) for little Natalie redeems the hit man. Mais naturellement. But Portman’s real folks should be cares that their cameragenie daughter isn’t turned into a new Linda Blair. “The Professional” is the pseudo-thinking man’s “Pulp Fiction.” Where Quentin Tarantino’s movie is cool, complex, original, Besson’s is vicious, sentimental, counterfeit.
