Film Opening Analysis - Leon

The film opens with credits as it introduces the audience to the setting of the film. It looks as if we are travelling very fast through an urban city. This connotes how busy the city actually is. The setting is also typical of a thriller as this is where we usually expect a thriller to be taken place. We then are introduced to where this urban city is as we see a sign of two Italian flags in-between two buildings saying “Welcome to Little Italy”. When the audience see's this, we automatically think "Mafia" because this is what we associate thrillers with in Italy. The urban city is typical iconography as this is mainly where thrillers are set, in the cities where it is very busy, a lot of business involved, and the use of high technology.

We then are shown a small restaurant and we are entered into it. The audience then are introduced to the professional Leon, but we cannot see all of him, we can only see his eyes but with glasses on. This is typical of a thriller as we want to see Leon and we wonder why he is not shown to us yet, this also connotes how important he is. We are then introduced to Leon’s boss, using typical thriller iconography smoking a cigarette. We are only shown parts of both Leon and his Boss’s face as it reflects how they are very secretive and serious they are. We then hear Leon’s boss say “Let’s talk business” and shows Leon a picture of the "fat bastard" he wants to be killed. We are now introduced to what Leon’s character is, a hit man.

The characters in Leon are very typical of a thriller as they are all middle aged men between 30-50’s. This is typical of a thriller because we usually expect more mature men in this genre as it usually reflects power and business. Another character that we are shown and is also typical of a thriller is the prostitute. This is typical within a thriller because the male characters that play the role of hit men etc do not have time for girlfriends/wives because of the dangerous career that they do. The young innocent victim in the film (Matilda) is also typical of a thriller as we always get a character caught up in a situation that they cannot control and they loose everybody close to them. The corrupt cops, Detectives, Gangs, Drug dealers are also typical of  a thriller as the audience always expect the characters that are seen as the "Low lives" and try their best to make other peoples lives messed up.

After the meeting between Leon and his Boss, we then meet the man that is going to be killed. This is dramatic irony as the man thinks it is a normal day, doing business, hiring a prostitute and having several body guards with him. We are then shown more typical thriller iconography as we see his body guards opening a suitcase full of packages of cocaine, connoting the wealth and danger of this man by the amount of drugs, the luxury hotel room and the pretty prostitute.

We then experience dramatic irony again as we see the receptionist downstairs overlooked by a dark shadow, which we know that it is Leon going to kill, however nor the man or his body guards know what is going to happen. We then see the man receiving a phone call while he is in bed by one of his body guards holding typical thriller iconography (a gun) to his face. The man then speaks to his body guard on the phone asking why he wanted to speak to him and what did he look like. His bodyguard replies "Serious". Leon then tells the body guard to say he is coming up, and then shoots him. This builds up tension for the audience as we know that something bad is about to happen.The man automatically gets his men to go and check for the stranger with their guns, we experience tension again as Leon is nowhere to be seen, the lift then starts to travel upstairs and we can see the numbers going up and up, changing as we think Leon is travelling up the lift. We then are left on a cliff-hanger as we see something popping out from the lift, the body guards start to shoot, however we see that it was a false alarm, and it was not a real person who the men shot. Suspense then builds up as we have been set on a false alarm ans nor us as the audience or the men where Leon is and where he is going to come out from.


As the body guards are trying to find Leon, non diegetic sound is played to get the audience on the edge of their seats and to build up suspense. Leon then appears from underneath the stairs as he kills the body guards one by one. As soon as the action takes place, especially when the bad guy is on his own now, audio visual style is used, it is very fast pace edited and a lot of noisy shootouts till the moment that the Leon meets the bad guy. This is typical of a thriller as both the characters and the audience are anxious to what is going to happen next, therefore it builds up more tension and suspense. 


This is a typical thriller opening as right from the start the audience experience violence and danger. This keeps the audience hanging on and wanting to watch more of the film as the opening to the thriller can leave a lot of unanswered questions. In Leon, the audience mainly want to meet Leon as we can see that Leon has a soft side to him too. The Narrative to "Leon" is that an innocent victims life is shattered, she wants revenge and hires an expert(Leon) to help her. This is a typical thriller narrative as we usually see that somebody gets caught up in a situation which they cannot control and it is a struggle to manage and get out of it. "Leon" does follow a typical thriller narrative, however there are two different themes of Revenge and Love. Despite the action and danger we see an insuperable relationship between Matilda and Leon and how they work together, stand by and sacrifice things for each other.