John Frankenheimer’s RONIN is a movie that kicked my ass in a multiplex in the year 1998 A.D. The thing that really stuck in my head about it was the car chases, of course – specifically the one where they end up going the wrong way in a tunnel. But I also remembered it being very tough and smart, I was pretty confident it would hold up, and man was I right. This is a ’90s classic. But timeless.
The title is a metaphor comparing former intelligence agents and soldiers to masterless samurai. It’s about a group of them, apparently serving no higher cause, just letting whoever-the-fuck hire them for their particular set of skills. Sam (Robert De Niro between GREAT EXPECTATIONS and ANALYZE THIS) is a former CIA guy who’s in Montmartre to meet IRA operative Deirdre (Natascha McElhone, THE TRUMAN SHOW), who’s putting together a team that also includes the Frenchman Vincent (Jean Reno doing penance for GODZILLA), Englishman Spence (Sean Bean, GOLDENEYE), German computer expert Gregor (Stellan Skarsgård right before DEEP BLUE SEA) and American driver Larry (Skipp Sudduth, MONEY TRAIN, 54). They will be stealing a metal case from a heavily armed convoy, so they discuss what they know and don’t know about how it will go down, how and when they’ll do it, what equipment they’ll need, where they’ll get that, how they’ll prepare.
There’s a beautiful simplicity to the story – they’re just coming together to do this one job, and that’s about it. It opens with Sam coming down these stairs to the bistro where they meet, it ends on the same stairs. Of course, the job has many complications. They gotta get the case before the Russian mafia buys it, the guys selling them guns try to screw them, they get ambushed, there are double crosses, there are chases and gun fights and regroups and rendezvous. But from the beginning until the end they’re just trying to get this case.
What’s in it? I don’t know – the Rabbit’s Foot, maybe? We never find out, because it doesn’t matter. Sam asks early on, but only for planning purposes – how big is it, how heavy, is it handcuffed to a guy? Says if they don’t tell him they need to pay him extra. I guess they must do that.
The story does find time to fit in some romance, but with tasteful minimalism. When Sam and Deirdre are staking out a house from a car, someone drives by and they have to do the ol’ “pretend we’re making out” move. When they pull apart Deirdre puts her finger to her lip. I thought she was thinking, “Well, that was awkward.” But then she leans in and they just continue for real. No discussion necessary.
It’s the best kind of procedural – watching pros do their work, not having to talk about everything, not having to explain it to us, lots of little details we never saw in a movie before, never thought of before, must’ve been from research, but if not it sure fooled me, it seems plausible. My favorite is the scene where Sam photographs a VIP and his security detail in a hotel lobby by asking a random guy to take pictures of him and his “wife.” As Sam holds out the camera to show the guy how it works he’s actually pointing it where he needs to and clicking away. Things were so much more complicated when you had to use film.
Another great moment: they finally get the case, Sam notices silver paint on his hand, realizes that means a team member made a fake case and handed it to him. Once again, it doesn’t have to be explained to us in dialogue, he just sees the silver and yells that it’s a bomb.
I suppose this is sort of a spoiler for something that doesn’t happen, but of course you don’t know who you can trust in a movie about this, and I couldn’t remember if Reno was playing a traitor here like he did in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. I was so happy that he wasn’t, and we just get to appreciate him being a true friend to Sam. It’s wholesome.
Speaking of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, by the way, I know this came after the first one, but it really reminds me of that series, especially the McQuarrie ones. It’s less complicated, more down to earth, but with many similarities. Trickery, chases, exotic locations, exotic faces, matter-of-fact spycraft. It also made me think of that other hard-nosed ‘90s De Niro classic I recently revisited, HEAT, the way these cold-hearted professionals are willing to just absolutely fuck shit up in broad daylight in front of civilians if need be. They just have this resolute “Whelp, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but…” attitude.
When things really go south, Sam gets hit by a ricochet and Vincent brings him to his friend Jean-Pierre (Michael Lonsdale, MUNICH). Instead of the standard underworld doctor who works out of a disgusting warehouse or something, Jean-Pierre has a nice villa. He also uses his precise hands to paint miniature models of the 47 ronin, and tells Sam their story. (You gotta love a random miniature-model-hobbyist in an action movie.) Vincent has to help with the surgery, cutting into his friend with an X-acto knife (also used for the models?), but it works out, and they don’t even clank the slug into a metal plate or glass of liquid when they’re done. I like when Sam says, “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna pass out.” Not being funny. Being polite.
In the first couple scenes I didn’t clock the blond bespectacled Gregor as Skarsgård, but of course that’s him. It’s funny to see this all-star team – DeNiro, Skarsgård, Reno, Bean, and then… some guy (Skipp Sudduth). Next to these movie stars he just seems like a regular person, and that made me almost believe he was a real driver. Then I read that he did in fact do most of his stunts, because he’s an amateur racer and stunt driver in addition to being an actor.
I honestly think this movie would still be great without amazing car chases, but I’m glad they did them anyway. Frankenheimer avoided speeding up the frame rates, and used his camera mounts from GRAND PRIX, with the actors actually filmed inside cars driven up to 100 mph, holding dummy steering wheels with high performance drivers really steering on the right side. The final chase used 300 stunt drivers. One simple trick is that the chases don’t use much music, which I think helps to make them feel more tense and real.
I don’t think of the ‘90s as a big car chase era. Is RONIN the best of the decade in that department? I looked for best car chases of the ‘90s lists, found a video that had some choices like JADE, TAXI (the original French one), THE ROCK (sorry, I hate that one), WHO AM I?, SPEED (of course), T2 (duh), and yes, RONIN at #1.
Car stunt coordinator Jean-Claude Lagniez was Roger Moore’s stunt double driver in A VIEW TO A KILL. Good job, Jean-Claude.
The script is credited to J.D. Zeik and Richard Weisz, story by Zeik. Weisz is a pseudonym for David Mamet, who rewrote Zeik’s original script. Zeik has said that it’s mostly his script while Frankenheimer once said “we didn’t shoot a line of Zeik’s script,” but later either felt bad or got some flack from the WGA or somebody so he walked that back in an open letter in Variety. So who knows, but the simplicity of it, the lack of unneeded explanation, and details about tradecraft seem very Mamet. On the other hand, the pretentious comparison to ronin also seems Mamet-y, and that reportedly comes from Zeik’s fascination with James Clavell’s Shogun. So who knows? Not me. All I know is that it was Zeik’s first film, and his others are the TV movie WITCHBLADE, the Michelle Yeoh movie THE TOUCH, Seagal’s PISTOL WHIPPED, and a 2016 TV movie called HENRY THE 9TH.
Here’s something that’s interesting, at least to me. This was produced by Frank Mancuso Jr., son of the former president of Paramount who started working on the FRIDAY THE 13TH series with part 2 when he was in his early twenties. RONIN is easily the classiest movie he has his name on. He did it between SPECIES II and STIGMATA.
This was near the end of the line for Frankenheimer, and it was his last film that was well-received. He was coming off of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, an eleventh hour replacing-the-fired-madman-director gig on a legendarily troubled production, widely perceived as a disaster, but fuck ‘em, that movie rules and everybody who told him otherwise is honor bound to visit his grave and apologize. He ended on REINDEER GAMES, which is also pretty good, but he got fucked over by the studio and everybody was mean about the movie at the time. So I’m glad everybody at least patted his back for this one. He must’ve known he still had it.
Anyway, trust me: if it’s been a while for you too, it’s time to revisit RONIN.
February 26th, 2024 at 7:27 am
I fucking love this movie; I own the Arrow Blu-Ray from a few years ago.
To my mind, this movie contains the most brilliant line of dialogue David Mamet ever wrote, one you mention briefly in your review: when Robert De Niro asks, “What’s in the case?” and Natasha McElhone says, “You don’t need to know.” It’s such an unbelievable meta moment that also works within the context of the story. It could only have been better if McElhone had delivered that line looking straight into the camera.