DVD reviews: Leon - Director's Cut | Sounds Like Teen Spirit

Published on Thursday 10 September 2009 18:56

LEON – DIRECTOR'S CUT (OPTIMUM) £15.65 SOUNDS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT (WARNER MUSIC) £17.60

BORN of frustration while he was waiting for all the money to come together for his special-effects extravaganza The Fifth Element, Luc Besson's first American film, Leon, remains his finest achievement. A spin-off in all but name of the cleaner character Jean Reno played in Besson's previous film, Nikita, this hitman thriller about a meticulous, illiterate French killer (Reno) working for the mob was given a weird twist by pairing him up with a wise-beyond-her-years adolescent. Becoming protector to Matilda (Natalie Portman) after her family are gunned down by crooked cops led by Gary Oldman's pill-popping, Beethoven-humming detective, it was the blatant sexual undercurrents to their relationship that gave it such a disturbing edge back in 1994, and that hasn't really lessened over the years. It's hard to imagine a commercial thriller getting made today that has a 12-year-old girl – especially one with the brazen confidence Portman brought to the part – declare her love for an emotionally immature 40-something man, much less ask him to have sex with her.

Actually, the latter scene was too much back then, too, but it has been restored to this director's cut DVD and Blu-ray release, adding an extra frisson of tension to an already odd coupling. The other major additions include a practice hit, executed with all the slick magisterial brilliance Besson was once capable of before he lost the plot and started making rubbish kids' films. Stylistically, the film holds up incredibly well, especially in an age of hyperactive editing and frantic hand-held camera work. Too bad then that the shoddy collection of extras amounts to a couple of minor interviews with Portman and Reno and a weak retrospective featurette cobbled together for the ten-year US anniversary release (the Blu-ray includes the theatrical cut of the film as well).

Also out is Sounds Like Teen Spirit, a surprisingly charming documentary about the junior Eurovision Song Contest. Acting as a counterpoint to the car-crash TV phenomenon that is X Factor, here pushy parents and precocious brats take a back seat to a bunch of amusing, switched-on Euro kids who revel in the pleasure and friendship that comes from engaging in a shared experience doing something they love.