If you’re tired of all the CGI material battles and interchangeable superhero sounds of the current cinema landscape, You now get your money’s worth at Paramount+, because that’s where it is now “Ronin“ready to be picked up. A genre hit that you rarely encounter these days. John Frankenheimer’s meticulously staged old-school action thriller not only features some of the best car chases in cinematic history, but also has a great feel for its famous cast characters.
That’s what ‘Ronin’ is about
It is a unique team of professionals: a specialist in weapons and strategy, Sam (Robert De Niro), an excellent getaway driver, Larry (Skipp Sudduth), the weapons expert Spence (Sean Bean), the German computer expert Gregor (Stellan Skarsgård) and that French organizational genius Vincent (Jean Reno). They are all hired by the mysterious Dierdre (Natascha McElhone) to carry out a very risky assignment.
They would have to obtain an aluminum suitcase, the contents of which are not known to any member of the criminal crew. A Russian organization, the IRA and other threatening groups are also after the suitcase. They are all aware that this mission is life-threatening. Time turns mercilessly against the team – and a traitor within their own ranks complicates the situation even further…
A beautiful tribute to French cinema
In the 1990s, ‘Ronin’ seemed like a kind of contrast within action cinema. While blockbusters like ‘The Rock’, ‘Die Hard’, ‘Terminator 2’ and ‘Con Air’ relied on full-blooded spectacle, John Frankenheimer is more concerned with developing a sense of the characters and the reality of their lives. ‘Ronin’ was clearly modeled on the so-called polar cinema from France, on which Jean-Pierre Melville (‘Four in the Red Circle’) once left his icy mark.
Here the audience is sucked into a cold world in which violence and corruption have gained the upper hand. The characters you deal with have forgotten how to live. Instead, they just work. It is no different in ‘Ronin’. Sam and his companions can hardly move freely through the streets, because they have to plan every step down to the last detail. When these people enter a bar, the back door is worked first so that they can disappear as quickly and unharmed as possible.
In the late 1990s, the thoughtfulness with which John Frankenheimer operated in ‘Ronin’ was already unusual or extraordinary. He gives the characters time and space to develop, talks about their fears, their profile neuroses and their completely extraordinary abilities – and still lets them keep secrets. ‘Ronin’ is almost seen as a kind of romantic return to traditional genre cinemathat was not just about riots, but also about the people themselves.
However, when ‘Ronin’ explodes, John Frankenheimer brings out the big gun. Filmed in original locations – from Nice to Ares – ‘Ronin’ stars the best car chases of the nineties. The authenticity of the precise production literally puts the audience in their seatswhen you accelerate here. In any case, the streets of France have rarely been so stylish and intensely heated – especially when it comes to American productions.