Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
I don’t want to take up much time with the plot recap of Ronin, so I’ll get through it as quickly as possible. In fact, it’ll be Ronin 60 Seconds.
In France, a small team is being assembled by Natascha McElhone’s Deirdre to mount a raid and retrieve a case that’s stuffed to the brim with McGuffinium, currently on its way into the country under heavy guard. Said team, who are at least initially cultivating a bit of mystery about their origins and skillsets, are Robert De Niro’s Sam, Jean Reno’s Vincent, Sean Bean’s Spence, Stellan Skarsgård’s Gregor, and Skipp Sudduth’s Larry.
Soon enough we’ll get a bit more detail – Larry is the wheelman, Gregor the tech expert, Vincent the local fixer and Spense is the obvious fraud, and while our point of view character Sam’s background remains a touch more vague, it’s clear that he’s the most competent to take charge of the planning and execution of the heist, navigating the tensions and frictions of the thrown-together team.
While this is initially successful, it sets off a cascade of betrayals and double crosses that sees Sam and crew scrambling to recover from, again and again, and at the risk of spoiling a – checks notes – old as balls film, essentially we can say everyone betrays everyone else, just as those historical ronin notedly did not.
An old axiom holds that everyone has at least one story in them, in screenwriter J.D. Zeik’s case, it seems that one is all he had that’s worth considering at any rate, unless 2008’s Pistol Whipped bucks the usual quality trend of Steven Seagal films. In terms of Ronin at least, I’m not so sure my primary enjoyment comes from the plot, exactly. It’s not bad, for sure, and I should note that this is another inductee in the Scott Morris Hall Of “Of Course I’ve Seen This Film Before, Hang On, Wait, No, I Haven’t”, but even on a first viewing this amount of double-crossing is credulity stretching. It does, however, propel the film onwards at a heck of a clip, and makes for a fun watch, particularly with some better than usual character work, for this sort of thing.
If we are to hold Mamet responsible for all of the dialogue, we can at least divine that he has never been to Britain. Or, England, specifically, as while there’s plenty of bones to pick with the delivery of the Blarney, it’s mainly poor ol’ Sean Bean that’s lumbered with some of the least believable sentences in the film. That’s tempered a little by his character being supposed to be a bit of a fraud, but in any sense this is laying it on a bit thick and the overall quality of this film increases immensely when he stops being in it. Just for once, it’s not primarily his fault.
The rest of the cast fare better, the interplay between De Niro and Reno being a particular highlight, although it could perhaps have shown a touch more restraint in painting De Niro with as much of the bad-ass brush as was available at the time. Still, it’s an effective palette, with some pleasing gunplay and some incredible chase scenes. I mean, it’s no Fast and Furious 8, but, y’know, for the time it’s good. Could really use someone driving a submarine into a skyscraper, though.
Adding to the atmosphere, alongside the punchy pacing and editing, is director John Frankenheimer and cinematographer Robert Fraisse’s efforts to make a film shot in ’97 look like it was made in ’79, with a muted palette and shots that show off the beauty of Paris mostly without the obvious tourist shots that might be easier to go for. It’s a much appreciated bit of visual flair, or, well, perhaps the exact opposite of flair, that gives this a bit of differentiation from contemporary action films, albeit one that audiences did not seem to appreciate going by the lacklustre box office returns.
I recommend that you do not make the same mistake as those late nineties dummies, like, er, me, and catch up with this if you have not. It’s not going to radically change your world, but it will prove an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. Isn’t that enough?