Leon: The Professional (Luc Besson Collection) - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Leon: The Professional


Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Leon: The Professional acts as our second forray into Luc Besson's film past, as well as one of our first 4K films released from Sony. While this new disc isn't going to be massively different, it IS the first time that The Professional has gotten a domestic Dolby Vision upgrade, as well as a brand new slipcover for this set and some new interviews to add to the special features list.

There are very few films that are truly PERFECT films (in my eyes). I have 5/5 rated movies in my review repertoire that I think are perfect for their genre (John Wick is one of them), but there are VERY few films that are actually perfect pieces of cinematic art. Leon: The Professional just so happens to be one of them. Director/Writer Luc Besson is known for quite a few films, with movies like The Fifth Element and La Femme Nikita blowing up theaters, but his magnum opus is easily Leon. The film has a cult following, as it personifies a more stable and nuanced Besson, who creates a tour de force action movie that is filled with a fantastic array of limited character studies and relationships that is extremely compelling. Like The Fifth Element, I think I have owned more copies of the film than just about any other. I’ve had the DVD when it was just titled The Professional (e.g., the American theatrical cut), then the superbit DVD, the 2-disc special edition which included the extended international cut (renamed Leon: The Professional, as the international title for the films was just Leon), then came the Blu-ray, and then the 2015 remastered Blu-ray which came out ALSO right along with The Fifth Element and gave us a much-needed kick in the video pants and an Atmos track. This new 4K release is struck from that 4K master, and the results are absolutely SPECTACULAR.

Leon (Jean Reno) is a Cleaner in the seedy underbelly of New York City. E.g., he’s a hitman working for mob boss Tony (Danny Aiello) and easily the best in the business. Everything is down to order, routine, method, and ultimately a code of honor, which has earned him the distinction of being the most feared cleaner in the region. The downside to this profession and his level of commitment is that you’re really not much of a people person at the end of the day. He lives in a rundown apartment in the deep city, and it’s not exactly filled with the best of tenants. He lives down the hall from a young girl named Matilda (Natalie Portman) who always makes an effort to say hi to him, but his awkward persona makes it difficult for the assassin to really relate to her besides the semi-affectionate offering of a handkerchief for a bloody nose etc.

When Matilda’s abusive family is slaughtered by a rogue DEA agent turned drug dealer named Stansfield (Gary Oldman, hamming it up to a level that rivals Peter Stormare), Matilda only has one person to turn to, Leon. Now Matilda isn’t exactly your typical innocent young girl. She’s bene the butt of her family’s crazy, abusive nature for years, and the cynical girl is more than well versed in the ways of pain. However, her younger 4 year old brother was killed as well, and the orphaned girl wants revenge. Begging Leon to teach her how to become a “cleaner”, the young waif forms a relationship with the hitman that is healing for both of them, despite the incredibly odd nature of their interactions.

The premise behind Leon is rather goofy, but Luc Besson is the king of bizarre, and makes it work masterfully. The idea of Leon teaching Matilda how to become a hitman (or hitgirl I guess) is borderline insane, but what makes the movie work so incredibly well is the fact that they two are a symbiotic pair. Each one needing something from the other to heal in a sort of way. Matilda needs the care and guidance of a father figure, and Leon needs a purpose in his life besides killing. A purpose that allows him to become MORE than the soulless killing machine that he is. The two want companionship, but their path to a center is as rocky s the job they’ve chosen. Matilda is naturally semi attracted to her hero, and the young girl sees that as a romantic feeling, rather than the hero worship that it is (which makes room for some genuinely hilarious moments where Leon is struggling to wrap is head around the mind of a 14 year old girl). The same can be said for Leon as well. He desperately wants the feeling of being “wanted”, and given a purpose in caring for someone. The only thing is, he’s not really the father type. A hitman with limited social skills and a street wise young girl make for strange friends, but Besson makes it work like a well oiled machine.

Ironically, Leon was actually taken from and inspired by Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita where Jean Reno played a similar hitman, and in that way it DOES share some similarities to the former film. The thing is, Besson just used that as a starting point, and makes Leon: The Professional into a work all its own in short order. The plot is kind of ridiculous on the surface (something Besson is known for), but Besson doesn’t just settle for bizarre. He pushes the comfort level just a little bit by training Matilda how to kill, as well as the extended cut inserting a few scenes where Matilda kind of awkwardly misplaces her hero worship in a romantic way. Nothing inappropriate ever happens, but it’s rather disconcerting to watch their relationship grow, even though there is a sense of kindness and innocence to it as well.

Jean Reno is magnificent as the killer, and Portman did an amazing job for a young child actor. The real scene stealer, though, is Gary Oldman. Every time he comes out on set he’s pulling a Peter Stormare, but does it so incredibly well that you can’t help but love the psychopathic cop. There are several standout performances in the side characters, but the three leads just sell the entire thing, and sell it with gusto. Oldman’s performance here is his career best (or at least my FAVORITE) in my humble opinion, and he creates one of the most incredibly loathsome and hilarious characters in all of cinematic history.




Rating:

Rated R for scenes of strong graphic violence, and for language




4K Video: Video:

Being that this is the first time we have gotten a Dolby Vision upgrade for The Professional, I decided to do an A/B comparison of my old HDR disc with this one. And like most Sony encodes, there’s not a whole lot of difference. They seem to have taken the same master for the 2017 disc and simply applied the Dolby Vision to it, which isn’t a bad thing. The 2017 disc looked flawless, and this looks even more so. The uptick in detail levels from the Blu-ray is still the same stunning amount, and colors are very VERY similar as The Professional was never one of those films that would “pop” with it’s dreary 1990s french aesthetics. That being said, the earthy browns and black levels show minor improvement in the whole schebang, showing off better shadow details and more pronounced details on Jean Reno’s black jacket. But weirdly enough, I feel like there’s some compression going on here, as I noticed a few scenes that looked a bit blocky, and don’t look like that on the older disc. BUUUUUUUT, I could be fooling myself as they were brief and never really a problem on screen. Just something I would notice during freeze frames.








Audio:

The same Dolby Atmos track housed on the 2015 Blu-ray is transferred across, and that is one AMAZING audio mix. I’m usually not a person who likes remixes of tracks and prefer the original mixes, but Atmos has kind of converted me to the dark side as we’ve heard some stunning 5.1/7.1 to Atmos remixes recently. Leon is one of them, and it takes an already amazing audio track and just makes it better. The film is a mix of quiet moments interspersed with incredibly aggressive and powerful LFE, and a wide spacious sound field when the action picks up. My only complaint with the mix is the fact that the overheads aren’t really as engaging as they could be, and there are few moments that even the surrounds feel a bit light in the back. It’s not major, but just enough to make me keep this from a perfect score.






Extras:

• Interviews
-- Director of Photography Theirry Arbogast
-- Editer Sylvie Landra
-- Journalist Alain Kruger
-- Gaumont Technical Director Andre Labbouz
• Cast and Crew Look Back
• Jean Reno: The Road to Léon
• Natalie Portman: Starting Young
• Fact Track
• Trailer

Final Score: ​

It’s not out of the realm of possibility to say that Leon: The Professional is ONE of the best action movies ever created. It has Luc Besson’s trademark wry wit and disturbing violence, combined with a sense of heart and compassion that just tugs at the heart strings. Action, drama, intensely disturbing relationships, Leon has it all, and Sony’s 4K UHD brings a stunning video encode and the same fantastic Atmos track that came out a few years back. As for the ugpradability from the standalone set? Well, it's not a massive upgrade, but the differences are there. The new Dolby Vision enhanced encode looks and sounds great, but as is the case with MOST Sony remasters, the differences between the HDR version and the new Dolby Vision version are slight at best. The same can be said of the extras as they include the same legacy extras, but included a new set of interviews to add to the list. Nothing wild, but still appreciated that they didn't just port over the old disc and do nothing to it. The most interesting feature was changing some of the secondary audio mixes around, actually giving us a 5.1 DTS-HD MA track in French and English, neighter of which were on the old 4K disc. All in all, this is a nice addition to the set.
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(Being that each film is only included in the massive 9 film collection, my "buy it on Amazon" links will all lead back to the box set for purchase)



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman
Directed by: Luc Besson
Written by: Luc Besson
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English, French DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo Surround
Studio: Sony
Rated: R
Runtime: 110 Minutes (Theatrical) / 133 Minutes (Extended)
Blu-ray Release Date: Nobember 11th, 2025

Recommendation: Must Buy

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