Film Review: Ronin

Let’s begin by attempting to set up the film. It is supposed to be a dark espionage - counter espionage flick that focuses on ex-intelligence field operatives who are part of a spy mercenary ring with the mission to retrieve a mysterious aluminum briefcase from a team of agent types who are guarding the package. Ronin spend a full 50 minutes just setting the darn thing up. We see a disconnected potpourri of highly skilled, best in their field mercs, sitting around brooding in scenarios of mutual mistrust waiting to see who is who. Let me give you a glimpse of the first hour of Ronin. Think of Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible. Think about when they returned to their safe house after stealing the NOC list from Langley CIA. Think of the banter between them over who would keep the disk and back and forth. That was fine for Mission Impossible because it only lasted a few minutes. Now imagine Ronin with the opening scene being such and lasting for more than an hour. Uck! The film never gives us a reason to care about what is going on and that is it’s major failing.

The dialogue is horrible and the only saving grace is the incredible interaction by one of the most competent cast I’ve ever seen. Speaking of cast, you’ve got Robert De Niro, in the starring role as Sam whose performance, with the script he had to work with, just couldn’t have been better. There was Vincent played by Jean Reno, the French actor best known as the star of The Professional, and Irish actor, Sean Bean (villain in Patriot Games, Golden Eye), whose role was a simple crock. Even more insulting, was casting Jonathan Pryce (Tomorrow Never Dies, Glengary Glen Ross) as Seamus, a shadowy double crosser with no integrity. Watching Pryce in this role was more than I could bear considering he’s been one of my favorite actors since the groundbreaking film, Brazil.  I don’t want to drag it out but you had other great actors like Natascha Mel-Thone, Sellan Skargard, Skipp Dudduth, and the incredible Michael Lonsdale as Jean-Pierre who had the only good lines in the movie.

So now that you know who was in the movie, let me tell you why the movie is so bad. The theme of the film is never clear and comes off as nothing more than some bad guys trying to steal something from some other bad guys. What this film is missing is the essential to any story, a protagonist and a hero. The so called hook of this film is that no one, including the cast, the audience, or little green men from Mars, ever knows what’s in the case that these people are willing to die in order to both steal and protect. The film gives us no reason to invest our feelings, interest or emotions in what is going on. The film leaves us, the audience out, essentially relegating us to just watching the grass grow (which probably would have been more exciting) slowly in September.

Ronin is touted as a thinking person’s movie; trust me, it’s not. That term is simply a euphemism for telling you that if you don’t get it, then you must not be a thinking person. It’s like going to a ritzy party, eating caviar when you hate caviar, but pretend to enjoy it because everyone else says it’s great. In the case of Ronin, put down the caviar and go and get yourself a nice juicy hamburger.

Ronin does however, have some wonderful scenes. For example: this movie delivers the best car chase scenes I’ve ever witnessed on the screen. Unlike most films that show you the cars zooming around crowded streets, Ronin utilizes a pleasant mix of inside-the-car cameras to give you a sense of the chase from both inside and outside the car. If there were an Oscar category for car chases, this film would win hands down. Then there’s a really neat scene where De Niro directs Vincent in surgery having him remove a bullet from his abdomen without aid of pain killer. It was an interesting and ground breaking piece of artistry. There’s also a cleverly delivered romance angle between Sam (De Niro) and his employer Dierdre(Natascha Mel-Thone). While staking out the elusive aluminum case, the two of them avoid the police by pretending to be lovers kissing in the car. After the cop leaves them, dismissing them as innocent lovers, De Niro immediately returns to his intensive surveillance. Dierdre though, grabs is face and continues the kiss. It’s a pleasant touch considering that earlier in the film, she didn’t even want to hold his hand as they played touring husband and wife while casing the case. There are other pleasant moments but not enough to overcome this debacle of a movie’s script.

So we’re down to the question, should you rush out to see Ronin? If you enjoy a slow, brooding, dialogue free movie that resembles more an independent film than a release from a major Hollywood studio, then yes, see Ronin. If you see Ronin based on the trailer such as I did, you can bet that the BEST of this film IS the trailer. The rest is a hopelessly disconnected piece of celluloid that proves again the old show business axiom, "If it ain’t on the page… it ain’t on the stage." Trust me folks, this is one you can skip. One final note: This movie is very similar in theme to the recent Bruce Willis film, The Jackal. The Jackal however was flawlessly executed with a story that made us care from places all around the globe. Ronin, while shot exclusively in Europe tragically leaves you and I out of the equation with an abysmal story, an unremarkable theme and a waste of the best talent I’ve ever seen assembled in modern times. Imagine assembling the cast of Casablanca to do a remake of Return To Gilligan’s Island.

No way!