The Professional Movie Essay

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Journal 1: The Professional I came into The Professional not knowing very much about the film save for the general plot and that this was Natalie Portman’s first major movie. I knew the plot centered around the unconventional relationship between a young girl and a trained hitman, and that Gary Oldman starred as the antagonist. I did not know much about the actual substance of the film. Even though I knew very little about the movie, I still found it easy to predict the plot points beat for beat. The movie follows a rather simple narrative structure where we see a cold and calculating killer transform into a loving surrogate father, while a young and naive girl learns about the harsh realities of life. Having said this though, the movie really …show more content…

In one particular scene we see Mathilda (Natalie Portman) trying to convince Leon (Jean Reno) to play a game with her as she feels that they have been working too much. Leon reluctantly accepts and they play a game of quasi-charades where they dress up as celebrities and try to guess what each other are. It’s a silly scene that could feel out of place in a movie where the protagonist is a hired killer but it is executed in a way that makes it an important piece of the film. This scene accomplishes many things both explicitly and implicitly. Explicitly it acts as comic relief for the audience. This is the first time we see Leon having any sort of fun and seeing an assassin attempting John Wayne impressions is simply funny. However, this scene also offers insight into Leon and Mathilda’s respective characters and creates genuine emotion for the audience to latch on to. Leon is a pretty stoic guy who spends most of his time doing sit ups and sitting in the dark alone. In this instance though he is able to let go and have some childish fun with a young girl he sees almost as a daughter. A cold-blooded killer is being humanized and the audience can now grow attached to

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