The Professional (and KeepVid.com)

I've commented about this movie a few times in the past. It is definitely a bit on the awkward side, but it is still one of my favorites, and an amazing movie with themes that aren't talked about every day. The violence-side of the movie is plenty enough action to satisfy me, but I'd say less than a tenth of the movie is violent--it is just very, very well done.

--!SPOILER ALERT!--

You've got a guy, Jean-Claude Reno, who is a professional hitman. That is pretty much all he knows how to do. He has been screwed by his employer the day he set foot in America, but his employer is the closest person he has to a friend. He wants to get out of the business, but you know he just won't be able to.

Natalie Portman, who is somewhere in her teens, plays the roll of a daughter in a really fucked up family. The Dad screws over a very well-connected and extremely corrupt policeman, Gary Oldman, and their entire family ends up getting slaughtered--save Portman. She walks past the scene and her only hope is Reno taking her in... she doesn't care that the rest of her family is dead, but the killing of her completely innocent four year old brother sends her into a rage--and she wants revenge.

Here are two Youtube videos. The first is a recap of the movie, with bits of audio here and there along with a few good songs dubbed in. The second is one of the coolest shootout scenes I've ever seen, which is at the end of the film.

NOT SAFE FOR WORK (lots of killing, not any harsh language or nudity though, so watch at your own risk)





Growing up as a kid in America, who hasn't thought of being a hitman?? I mean, with all the video games (Grand Theft Auto, Counterstrike, Hitman, etc...), doing it in video-game land was plenty enough action for me. But I've met amped up guys who aren't satisfied with video games and enlist--just to shoot off guns, with a noble cause to back them up. Some aren't satisfied with that and request to be sent to Iraq, primarily to see action, and secondarily to "Protect America."

This movie portrays a somewhat believable way that a kid could actually become a hitman, and it doesn't sugarcoat the life. Reno wants more than his life as a hitman, and when he opens the door for her, not only is Reno her life-saver, but Portman becomes the shinning light in his gloom existence.

As an aside, the reason I've been posting quite a few Youtube videos recently is that I found out about KeepVid.com. It is a site (no program to download) that allows you to save Youtube videos to your computer. It is free, and allows me to save all of my favorite videos to my computer, in case they get removed for copyright infringement, which many of my favorite videos have fallen prey to. All of those amazing Pearl Jam videos at the VH1 Storytellers, which aren't available anywhere (to my knowledge), I could have on my computer for safe keeping--if only I had known about this website earlier!

In order to play the downloaded files, you need to download a free .flv player, which KeepVid links from their site. I hadn't heard about the .flv format before, but I guess it is a nice condenser, which allows Youtube and other sites to shrink the files and play them streaming over the internet. Typical music videos in .flv format are pretty much the size of a normal audio mp3, at about 6-12mb--which is nothing nowadays.

Thought I would be nice and pimp the site, because it has been just what I've been looking for as a nice backup to videos that I deem save-worthy :)