Ronin [VHS]
by John Frankenheimer
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Robert De Niro, Sean Bean, Stellan Skarsg?rdDirector: John Frankenheimer
Cinematographer: Robert Fraisse
Editor: Antony Gibbs
Producer: Ethel Winant
Producer: Frank Mancuso Jr.
Producer: Paul Kelmenson
Writer: David Mamet
Writer: J.D. Zeik
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog; French (Original Language); Russian (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Original recording reissued
Running Time: 122 minutes
Release Date: 1999-08-03
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
VHS Movie Reviews of Ronin [VHS]
Movie Review: Action Adventure in France
Summary: 2 Stars
In feudal Japan warriors who did not have a lord but were free-lancers were called "Ronin", or mercenaries. This film begins in Paris. A man watches from the shadows. A woman enters a bar. Another man watches. [We know something will happen.] They are summoned to a meeting. "Labor or management?" They are to ambush a vehicle to hijack a container. The guards are well-armed, more information will be available. Sam asks questions. There is a meeting to buy the guns from strangers. Is there trust? Will something go wrong? Will there be a chase? "Who are our employers?" The details about the hijack are given. Is one of them unreliable?
The team arrives in Nice to scout the location. They photograph the target. [Nobody notices this!] There is surveillance at night. Can traffic lights be remotely controlled? The ambush occurs on a city street. How many inconvenient bystanders? Next is the car chase through the country and narrow streets. There is a shoot-out between the groups. Something goes very wrong. A meeting is arranged, the disagreement is resolved. What next? "I know those men." Cell phones provide instant communication. There is a chase through the Colosseum of Arles, more shooting, then an escape. Were they sold out? There is an operation to remove a bullet. No anesthetic for a tough guy. Will they get the keys? We see a part of town avoided by tourists. "Why?" There is a car chase through a tunnel and then through traffic. Are they going the wrong way? They come to the end of their road. "Where does he go?" "Why ice skates?" Why go to an ice show? To find more bodies? Will there be another violent shoot-out? Can there be a happy ending after all the action? "Keep in touch."
The many foreign scenes remind me of those "James Bond" films of the 1960s. The search for something of value that proves illusory was done in "The Maltese Falcon". Assembling a team for a crime was done in "The Asphalt Jungle". They spent too much money on car chases and not enough on a good story for this exercise in futility.
Summary of Ronin [VHS]
Robert De Niro stars as an American intelligence operative adrift in irrelevance since the end of the Cold War--much like a masterless samurai, a.k.a. "ronin." With his services for sale, he joins a renegade, international team of fellow covert warriors with nothing but time on their hands. Their mission, as defined by the woman who hires them (Natascha McElhone), is to get hold of a particular suitcase that is equally coveted by the Russian mafia and Irish terrorists. As the scheme gets underway, De Niro's lone wolf strikes up a rare friendship with his French counterpart (Jean Reno), gets into a more-or-less romantic frame of mind with McElhone, and asserts his experience on the planning and execution of the job--going so far as to publicly humiliate one team member (Sean Bean) who is clearly out of his league. The story is largely unremarkable--there's an obligatory twist midway through that changes the nature of the team's business--but legendary filmmaker John Frankenheimer (Seconds, The Manchurian Candidate) leaps at the material, bringing to it an honest tension and seasoned, breathtaking skill with precision-action direction. The centerpiece of the movie is an honest-to-God car chase that is the real thing: not the how-can-we-top-the-last-stunt cartoon nonsense of Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon), but a pulse-quickening, kinetic dance of superb montage and timing. In a sense, Ronin is almost Frankenheimer's self-quoting version of a John Frankenheimer film. There isn't anything here he hasn't done before, but it's sure great to see it all again. --Tom KeoghAction & Adventure VHS Video
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