"From this angle, the script doesn't seem so pervy!"

LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

INT. WAY TOO CLOSE TO THE ACTORS FACES

We open on a lovely shot up DANNY AIELLO’s UGLY MUG in MICROSCOPIC DETAIL.

DANNY AIELLO

So, Jean. You gotta do the thing. Give the business. Make-a da moneys. Bibbity-bobbity-boobity. Pastrami, lasagna, tax fraud, assassination. Capiche?

JEAN RENO

You should moisturize, mon ami. Those pores, they as so clogged they could absorb the camera.

DANNY AIELLO

Like you’re a pretty postcard, tough guy. Go on. Make with the assassinations.

JEAN RENO

Oui. I will do these things for you.

DANNY AIELLO

And quit sounding so French. You’re Italian in this movie.

JEAN RENO

Quoi? My accent, she is, how you say, Frenchier than a plate of artisanal cheese wrapped in a surrender flag.

DANNY AIELLO

To American audiences, I think all accents just read as “foreign”. Go on, get murderin’, paisano.

JEAN goes to the APARTMENT where a bunch of MOOKS are standing around letting their MOOKMASTER get LAID.

MOOK #1

Say. You guys ever wonder if there’s more to life than mooking?

MOOK #2

Nah. It’s the mook life for me. My father was a mook before me, and his father before him, stretching back all the way to ancient Greece, where my early ancestor Persian Warrior #36 got shanked by King Leonidas himself. Standing around looking menacing before dying runs in my blood.

MOOK #1

Shit, man. I just got this gig because of student loan payments. That’s inspiring, really. Maybe I COULD make a career out of-

But JEAN begins SLAUGHTERING the SHIT out of EVERYONE by TELEPORTING through the CEILING TILES and into CLOSETS and OUTSIDE ONTO THE BALCONY like a cross between BATMAN and QUICKSILVER.

MOOKMASTER

Damn this building’s Hogwarts-like design!

JEAN RENO

So, you will not mook no more, yes?

MOOKMASTER

Oh, you don’t gotta worry about me! I’m done mooking! No more mookery from me, no sir!

JEAN RENO

Bon. Reno away.

(sinks into the floor in a swirl of shadow)

MOOKMASTER

(surrounded by bodies)

Seems like an excessive way to say “knock it off” when a stern email could have sufficed. But whatever. This is a new day for Mookmaster!

And MOOKMASTER went home that night and decided to QUIT SMOKING. He took up YOGA and worked up the courage to ASK OUT that GIRL behind the COUNTER at STARBUCKS and six months later they were LIVING TOGETHER in a nice BROWNSTONE, her working MORNINGS and him finishing his NOVEL. And things were better for MOOKMASTER than they’d been in QUITE SOME TIME.

END.

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING

Meanwhile, twelve-year old NATALIE PORTMAN chills in the STAIRWELL in her BUILDING, SMOKING and thinking about that STAR WARS script she’d just been handed.

NATALIE PORTMAN

I mean, work is work. But there’s like twelve monologues about sand in there. Well, this’ll be the only bland love interest I play in a blockbuster action film, this I swear.

Suddenly, JEAN appears.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Hey. You seem lonely. Wanna be lonely together?

JEAN RENO

Non, tiny girl. The thing about lonely people is, they tend to prefer to be alone.

NATALIE PORTMAN

I guess. How do you occupy yourself?

JEAN RENO

Milk, situps, and Gene Kelly movies. Sometimes I go crazy and get whole milk. You?

NATALIE PORTMAN

Smoking, mostly. My dad beats me and my step-mom’s a hooker and my sister’s a bitch and my little brother’s okay.

JEAN RENO

Then you should quit smoking. Better to start saving up for therapy now.

NATALIE snaps her fingers at him then goes back to PONDERING how the fuck someone can DIE of a BROKEN HEART.

Meanwhile, corrupt DEA AGENT GARY OLDMAN is talking to NATALIE’S DAD, MICHAEL BADALUCCO.

GARY OLDMAN

Look, Michael, I appreciate the way you’ve been storing coke for us. But you can’t skim off the top. It’s bad for business. If you’re hurting for cash we can renegotiate the price. How’s an extra fifty sound per package sound?

MICHAEL BADALUCCO

You’re a reasonable man, Gary. I’ll stop skimming. I apologize.

They HUG.

WRITER/DIRECTOR LUC BESSON

Cut! Gary, that was tres magnifique, but please, could you be more, how you say, dogshit fucked in the noodle? Like if Jim Carrey had a kid and that kid was insecure so he tried to be “random” so people would give him attention?

GARY OLDMAN

Can do, Luc man!

WRITER/DIRECTOR LUC BESSON

Action!

GARY OLDMAN

(dangling from the ceiling by his genitals)

WHEEEE! I’M A HIPPOPOTAMUS! WATCH ME FART THE THEME SONG TO WALKER TEXAS RANGER!

MICHAEL BADALUCCO

Uhh. What is this?

GARY OLDMAN

(grabbing Michael’s shoulders, deadly quiet)

Mike. Mike. Mike. MIKE! Mike. Mike. Miiiiiike.

MICHAEL BADALUCCO

Y-yes?

GARY OLDMAN

(communicating in semaphore)

Drugs. Coke. You have some. Stop skimming. I shoot your family.

MICHAEL BADALUCCO

Okay, quirky villains are fun and all. But what the actual fuck are you? You’re not even a person anymore. You’re a South Park character.

GARY OLDMAN

You mean the kind of person who would recruit a father of three to store his coke, instead of just keeping it under a bridge somewhere?

MICHEAL BADALUCCO

Yeah. Huh. I guess that does kind of make sense, in a nonsensical kind of way.

GARY OLDMAN

Quit stealing my shit or I’ll kill your whole family.

(pause)

(stomps the family cat)

(fashions roller skates out of the carcass)

(skates away)

MICHAEL BADALUCCO

I should probably listen to that man. But on the other hand, no I won’t.

The next day, MICHAEL wakes up, threatens his ALARM CLOCK until it stops RINGING, beats the shit out of some EGGS and TOAST, shouts RACIAL SLURS at the MAILMAN, does some LIGHT CALISTHENICS HARD DRUGS, and gives each of his DARLING CHILDREN a good PAT on the HEAD and a KISS GOOD MORNING just kidding he SCREAMS at them and SMACKS them a bit.

NATALIE PORTMAN

I can’t take this anymore. I’m going out for a pack of cigarettes.

MICHAEL BADALUCCO

Have fun, sweetie!

Just as she leaves, GARY shows back up with a retinue of MOOKS and a couple tons of MILITARY-GRADE HARDWARE.

GARY OLDMAN

Dear sir, I regret to inform you that you and your entire family shall forthwith be perforated by six metric tons of hot lead, in accordance with the DEA’s “Don’t Rip My Shit Fucknuts” grievance policy, paragraph five, subsection D.

MICHAEL BALDUCCO

You’re not going to, like, arrest us first and kill us at the station? Because you’re cops?

GARY OLDMAN

Booooring. This unsilenced Uzi should do the trick!

MICHAEL BALDUCCO

Surely you can’t be serious!

GARY OLDMAN

I am Sirius.

(replaces everyone’s blood with bullets)

And don’t call me Shirley.

At just this moment, NATALIE returns.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Hmm. I’m about eighty percent sure my family wasn’t corpses a few minutes ago. I should keep walking.

MOOK STANDING GUARD

Hmm. I’m about eighty percent sure I shouldn’t let random children see all the people we just murdered. I should probably keep standing here.

NATALIE knocks on JEAN’s door.

JEAN RENO

Who is there?

NATALIE PORTMAN

Your new Robin. I’ve got a brand new vendetta with a capital V, and you’re going to help me.

JEAN RENO

Well, I was going to try out this new one percent milk I keep hearing about, but, c’est la vie.

JEAN opens the DOOR and a new UNLIKELY PARTNERSHIP is FORMED!

INT. APARTMENT

JEAN RENO

So. You wish to be a tiny hit-person, yes?

NATALIE PORTMAN

Let’s just say my white swan is getting blacker by the moment.

JEAN RENO

It is a lonely and unforgiving life. If not for Luc Besson’s jerky editing and poor spatial reasoning, I would have been dead long ago. You must possess a certain…. Je ne sais quoi to succeed as a murder person.

NATALIE PORTMAN

I can do it! Watch!

She grabs one of JEAN’s guns and starts FIRING RANDOMLY out the WINDOW.

JEAN RENO

Your disregard for passersby has earned my respect. Welcome to Team Reno. Now, let me pack, because you just cost me my apartment, you petit psychopath.

EXT. HOTEL

The PAIR go to a HOTEL to get a new place to STAY.

JEAN RENO

Hmm. Will this place require paperwork to be filed?

NATALIE PORTMAN

Almost certainly.

JEAN RENO

Merde. We cannot stay here. I cannot read.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Shit. Talk about a narrow skill set. Reading street signs never came up in your hitmanning career?

JEAN RENO

Non. I mostly teleport from place to place anyway.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Well lucky for you I’ll be a Harvard graduate in a few years so I am going to read the SHIT out of this hotel policy agreement. I guess I AM useful to you!

JEAN RENO

In exchange, I shall teach you some murder skills. Allons-y.

They go to the ROOFTOP.

JEAN RENO

Now. The first lesson in les arts des morts involves the shooting of the rifle gun. Please pick a random douche whose children you would like to orphan.

NATALIE PORTMAN

That toolbag in the orange looks like he has some karma coming his way.

JEAN RENO

Very well. Now, aim carefully, and think about the person you would most like to kill.

NATALIE PORTMAN

FUCK YOU DAD I MEAN GARY OLDMAN!

NATALIE shoots some JOGGER but PSYCH it was a PAINTBALL RIFLE!

JEAN RENO

You are a natural at this. You have a long and prosperous career ahead of you.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Assuming Thor doesn’t fuck it up. So, what am I training with now? Krav maga? Silat? Capoeira? Pad thai?

JEAN RENO

Non. No more training. The middle chunk of this film is strictly the development of our barely-subtextual pedophilic love story.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Come on now! It’s a friendly kind of love! The kind that might blossom between any hardened hitman in his late-30’s and his twelve-year old apprentice! There’s nothing pedo about that!

But suddenly a PORTAL opens in SPACE TIME and we see the filmed version of this ACTUAL, HONEST-TO-GOD EXCERPT from the ORIGINAL SCRIPT for this film.

NATALIE PORTMAN

I want you to be the first to touch me, the first to make love to me. Nobody before you.

JEAN RENO

Why me, Natalie? Why me?

NATALIE PORTMAN

Because you deserve it.

JEAN embraces her. He’s full of happiness, shame, so many emotions, he can’t control very well. But hell, how beautiful it is seeing them make love.

Then REALITY REASSERTS ITSELF and JEAN and NATALIE hurriedly separate from each other, thoroughly CREEPED THE HELL OUT.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Jesus, I knew this movie was French but I didn’t realize it was THAT French! The fuck, Luc?!

LUC BESSON

What? It’s artsy! It’s not like this film was inspired by my actual relationship with an underage girl!

Except it WAS.

LUC BESSON

Uhh, hey! Let’s get Gary Oldman back! Come on, Gary, make with the distractions!

INT. POLICE STATION

After SCRUBBING HERSELF in the SHOWER until her SKIN PEELED OFF, NATALIE remembers this is an ACTION MOVIE and decides to go kill GARY herself!

NATALIE PORTMAN

Let’s see, I’ve got a takeout bag full of guns and little to no training. Here’s hoping all of these offices are soundproof while I go Wild Bunch on Gary’s ass. Here’s also hoping my tiny wrists don’t break from recoil.

GARY OLDMAN

(riding in on Willy Wonka’s soap-mobile)

Hey there, tiny girl with the thousand-yard stare. You wouldn’t happen to be the same tiny girl who escaped from my drug murder a few days ago, would you?

NATALIE PORTMAN

Uhh, no. That was Keira Knightley. We get mixed up all the time.

GARY OLDMAN

Ha, nice try. But seriously, I’m going to chop your body into ground beef.

NATALIE PORTMAN

You’d still be the second creepiest guy I’ve met today.

She glares in LUC’s direction.

GARY OLDMAN

Alright. Mooks! Guard this small human until I think of a sufficiently unpredictable way to kill her! Let me see, I could feed her to hamsters. No. Inflate her with a bicycle pump and watch her float away? Hmm. Dip her in soy sauce and…

(leaves)

RASTA MOOK

You ever think the boss might have a few screws loose?

GENERIC MOOK

All the time. But it’s not our place to question. Mooks gotta mook, you know? Otherwise the whole system falls apart!

RASTA MOOK

Not me, man. I want something better out of life. I’m going to start my own crime syndicate, just like dad always wanted! And I’ll get people to mook for ME! Just you wait. It’s going to be-

But suddenly, JEAN pops out of a nearby TARDIS and SLAUGHTERS the SHIT out of EVERYONE.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Yay! Thank you for saving me, uh, friend who I appreciate.

JEAN RENO

I appreciate you as well, uh, young lady.

They both awkwardly SHAKE HANDS while trying to touch each other as LITTLE as POSSIBLE.

INT. APARTMENT

JEAN RENO

Alright, we must prepare. Gary knows us now, he shall come and try to make us into dead people.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Okay. You drink some milk, I’m going out for a pack of cigarettes.

JEAN RENO

Have fun.

But on the way back NATALIE is captured by a MEDIUM-SIZED MILITIA OF SWAT OFFICERS.

NATALIE PORTMAN

Jesus, I have got to stop leaving places!

SWAT OFFICER

Okay, you bug-eyed waif. What’s the password to get into Jean’s apartment?

NATALIE PORTMAN

Uh, the password is “This is a bunch of corrupt SWAT officers, we have Natalie hostage, please kill us all.”

SWAT OFICER

A weird password, but okay. Head in, boys.

Two SWAT GUYS head in and a moment later their SEVERED HEADS roll back out.

SWAT OFFICER

Hmm, that’s unfortunate. Alright, next!

Four SWAT GUYS head in and a moment later a CROCODILE with a very FULL BELLY strolls back out.

SWAT OFFICER

Damn, foiled again! Come on, guys. Get it together!

Eight SWAT GUYS head in and a moment later they all COME BACK OUT, physically unharmed but having lost SOMETHING DEEP INSIDE THEMSELVES that they CAN’T REALLY EXPLAIN.

SWAT OFFICER

Shit this guy is good! What do we do, Gary?

GARY OLDMAN

Get me everyone.

SWAT OFFICER

Huh?

GARY OLDMAN

Everyone.

SWAT OFFICER

What does that mean? “Everyone” is very vague.

GARY OLDMAN

(snorting a kilo of blow)

(sticking his penis into an electrical socket)

(shouting into Metallica’s sound system)

(actual line)

EEEEEVVVVVEEEEERRRRRYYYYYYOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEE!

INT. DEWITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL, BRONX

OFFICER 1

(listening to radio)

(in the middle of a lecture on gun safety)

He wants “everyone”?

EXT. JERSEY TURNPIKE

OFFICER 2

(listening to radio)

(in the middle of administering a sobriety test)

He wants “everyone”?

INT. PLEASANT STREET CORNER IN QUEENS

OFFICER 3

(listening to radio)

(buying small child an ice cream because she dropped hers)

He wants “everyone”?

INT. 121ST PRECINCT ON 970 RICHMOND AVENUE, STATEN ISLAND, IN THE BREAK ROOM

JANITOR

(listening to radio)

(in the middle of scrubbing Krispy Kreme glaze off the table)

He wants “everyone”?

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING

Having assembled “EVERYONE”, GARY plots his next move.

GARY OLDMAN

Alright, we need to be smart about this. Officers, please use a goddam rocket launcher to blow this building to hell.

SWAT OFFICER

Alright.

(shouting into crowd)

Does anyone here know how to use a rocket launcher?

A few hands raise, because EVERYONE is there.

JEAN RENO

What’s that? My hitman senses are tingling. Natalie, it is time for us to part ways. Please climb down this hole in the wall. Go back to school. Get a real career, somewhere far away from me.

NATALIE PORTMAN

I’ll never forget you, uh, platonic assistant friend.

JEAN RENO

Nor I you, uh, girl for whom I have profound respect and nothing else.

They awkwardly FIST BUMP and NATALIE disappears just in time for the WHOLE FUCKING BUILDING to go BOOM.

GARY OLDMAN

Ha! I got him! At last, my arch nemesis who I’ve known about for like six hours is dead!

JEAN RENO

(flying in, covered in Wile E. Coyote ash)

Not so fast, mon ami! Allons-y straight to hell!

JEAN shoves a GRENADE up GARY’S ASS.

GARY OLDMAN

If only I’d had more people!

They EXPLODE.

INT. ITALIAN RESTAURANT

NATALIE goes to see DANNY, who’s still just sort of CHILLING.

DANNY AIELLO

Well, Jean left you a fuckton of money. I thought it was a little weird, him having a fascination with a twelve-year old girl but hey, I don’t judge.

NATALIE PORTMAN

How much did I get?

DANNY AIELLO

1.6 billion dollars.

NATALIE PORTMAN

That should just about cover my therapy bills.

(shudders)

END

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