I appreciate John Frankenheimer. Not just for directing "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Grand Prix", but for taking the one weak moment in his 1998 thriller, "Ronin" and getting it over with at the start. As the film begins, words flash across the screen, basically telling the audience what Ronin actually means (it's a term for the Masterless Samurai of 16th Century Japan, in case you're curious). It looks cheap, usually a precursor to a really bad movie, and it's splendidly explained by one of the characters at about the halfway point in the film anyway, so why bother with the silly beginning? In any event, I wasn't expecting much based on the first 30 seconds of "Ronin", but I was pleasantly surprised at everything I saw after that.
These modern-day Ronin are ex-operatives who've been put out to pasture in the 1990s. Their respective intelligence agencies, apparently buying the Clintonian delusion that the Cold War is over, have cut them loose. These include Sam (Robert DeNiro), an old CIA agent and Vincent, a French Mercenary, who develop an immediate friendship. Trust comes a little harder for the rest of the group: Gregor, who used to work for the Eastern Bloc; Larry, another American who specializes in high-speed driving; and Spence, a Brit who alludes to his past as a soldier for Her Majesty's elite SAS. These men are called together in Paris by Deidre, an Irish woman who serves as a liasion between the team and their mysterious employer.
Traitors are exposed and alliances are formed as they chase an elusive briefcase, the contents of which are the subject of much discussion. Breakneck car chases and brilliantly staged shoot-outs ensue.
There is enough action in "Ronin" for two movies. The centerpiece is an astonishing scene in which one car chases another through heavy Paris traffic, at 120 miles per hour, going the wrong way(!). You not only get a rush from the sequence itself, but feel a sense of admiration for all hands that were involved in putting the chase on film. This would include the actors, who reportedly did a good deal of their own stunt driving.
"Ronin" is probably the best American shoot-out movie since 1988's "Die Hard". It's the kind of picture you get from real pros like Frankenheimer and DeNiro, who love what they do and are damned good at it.
In this gritty, international action caper, a group of covert operatives, led by De Niro, must recover a top-secret briefcase that every underworld gr...More at HotMovieSale.com
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