| “ | Anybody else want to negotiate? | „ |
| ~ Dallas' most famous line |
Korben Dallas is the main protagonist of the 1997 sci-fi action film, The Fifth Element.
He was portrayed by Bruce Willis, who also played John McClane in the Die Hard franchise, Joe Hallenbeck in The Last Boy Scout, Harry Stamper in Armageddon, Paul Kersey in Death Wish, A.K. Waters in Tears of the Sun, Art Jeffries in Mercury Rising, David Dunn in the Unbreakable Trilogy, John Hartigan in Sin City, Frank Moses in the Red duology, Mr. Church in The Expendables, Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction, Ian Swann in Paradise City, James Knight in Detective Knight Trilogy, Jack Harris in Out of Death, Ben Watts in American Siege, and Thomas Malone in Apex.
Biography[]
He was a special forces soldier for the Federated Army until he was drummed out of the military by corrupt weapons dealer Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg. Afterward, Dallas finds work as a cab driver. When the alien Leeloo fell from the sky in the roof of his cab wrapped in thermal bandages, she asks him to take her to a priest, Vito Cornelius.
Upon their arrival, they realize she is The Fifth Element and Vito leaves. Dallas tries to wake her by kissing her and then she holds his gun against him and says a foreign language. Then Dallas apologizes and asks what is her name and when Cornelius and other priests make their arrival, they ask for Dallas's name before he takes his leave. Dallas goes home and explains to Finger why he didn't show and orders food and then gets a call from his mom.
Somehow he won the Gemini Crocket Contest, which was actually rigged by the Federal Army to re-enlist him so they can send him to Fhloston Paradise to get 4 elemental stones from the Diva Plavalaguna. Then Leeloo comes to his home and he hides the general and military in his house knowing they are after her and then later Dallas and the other heroes go to Fhloston Paradise and are pursued by the villains. Despite multiple people attempting to use his identity to get into Fhloston Paradise, he managed to get on board with Leeloo. Dallas managed to find the Diva and attends her concert, watching her performance. However, after its ending, the Mangalores storm the concert and shoots the Diva. As she lays dying, she managed to tell Dallas that Leeloo is the ultimate being, but she is more fragile than she seems and she needs his help and his love. As she dies, she tells him that the stones were in her body. Dallas finds the stones in the fallen Diva’s body and Leeloo takes out a group of bad guys and escapes Zorg, although injured. Zorg then sets in motion a bomb in the ship to dispose of the evidence. Dallas fought through the Mangalores and managed to kill the commander, forcing everyone to surrender. After Dallas, Vito, and Ruby Ross manages to find Leeloo in the Diva’s suite, where she was injured, they discover the bomb and as everyone evacuates due to bomb alarms going off, the heroes rush to the ship docks, where Zorg had parked his ship as he had returned to look for the stones as the case he took did not have them. While the heroes make their way into Zorg’s ship, Zorg himself goes to disarm the bomb, inadvertently giving the heroes more time to escape. However, although Dallas and his group manages to escape in time, the Mangalores had also set up another bomb in case their plan goes awry or once they were done on board. Zorg, along with Fhloston Paradise, were destroyed and incinerated. After receiving word from the President that a fiery ball was going to hit Earth in less than 2 hours, the heroes fly to the ancient chamber in Egypt to activate the stones and have Leeloo stop the Ultimate Evil. Although it was taking them a lot of time to do, the group manages to activate the stones and after Dallas confesses his love to the tired and distraught Leeloo, giving her a reason to stop the evil, she becomes the weapon that stops evil and destroys the ball, ending the Ultimate Evil.
After The Ultimate Evil's defeat, President Lindberg arrives to congratulate Dallas and Leeloo, but the scientist explains that the pair were exhausted and put in the revival chamber. As the scientist went to check on them, he gasps in surprise and he reluctantly denies entry. Just as Dallas’ mother calls them, she rants again, thinking it was her son, calling the President an idiot. Meanwhile, inside the chamber, it turns out that Dallas and Leeloo were making love inside.
Trivia[]
- Jean Reno, Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson, John Travolta, Billy Campbell and the late Bill Paxton were all considered for the role of Korben Dallas before Bruce Willis was cast.