Who is that Guy? Oh, it’s Jean Reno!

I was feeling a bit down this evening, so I decided I needed a really good movie fix. As I poured over my obsessively large collection of DVDs, it struck me that it’s been an age since I last viewed Leon (aka, The Professional). Leon is one of my most favorite modern movies and, in my opinion, Luc Besson’s best work to date. So, as IÂ  immersed myself in this marvelously constructed opera of underworld action and poetic tragedy, it dawned on me that I was also watching one of the most enjoyable character actors in the business.

Jean Reno, born in 1948 in Casablanca (oddly coincidental), Reno moved from his home country to escape the fascist government at the time and ultimately ended up in France. From his late teens, Reno studied drama in France and soon became a French movie star. With this success, assisted greatly by French director Luc Besson, Reno was courted by Hollywood. Reno had a smaller role in Besson’s avant-gard  Subway(1985), but Besson cast him again as the hit-man Victor in the cult favorite La Femme Nikita (1990). He would continue in French cinema until achieving the role that would truly popularize him in America. Besson again would cast Reno in Leon (1994) as a freelance Italian hit-man, who makes an impulsive decision to protect a young girl from certain death, against his every bit of instinct and training. From here begins a beautifully crafted saga of a man finding redemption in his friendship with this girl.

One year later, Reno appears in the American romantic comedy French Kiss (1995) as Inspector Cardon, attempting to catch Kevin Kline in the act of smuggling valuable jewels. Reno will appear in Mission: Impossible, Godzilla and then Ronin (1998), which contains one of the top 5 car chase scenes of all-time. In 2000, Reno returned to French cinema to make The Crimson Rivers, a fresh little suspense-thriller where he again plays a detective investigating what appear to be murders of a supernatural source.

In 2001, Reno plays … that’s right, another detective in Wasabi, where he is a masterful French detective forced to take two months leave. He decides to travel to Japan, where he gets involved in a case and ends up protecting his former colleagues daughter. Turns out, this slightly familiar story was also written by Besson, but it was quite the enjoyable action-detective-comedy-thriller. As you may have noticed, Reno tends to be cast as (a) a hit-man, or (b) a detective. I believe it’s because he’s damn good at playing both. Besides, that’s what being a character actor is all about, and Reno is one of the best.