Ronin . Newcity Chicago . 10-05-98

Ronin

DIRECTED BY: John Frankenheimer

REVIEWED: 10-05-98

Cross "Speed" with "The Spanish Prisoner," if you dare, and you might have "Ronin," an incident-packed action entry that I can't get out of my head. On a second go, "Ronin" seems like it could even be some kind of unassuming masterpiece. Let's call it "Mission Impossible" done right. Filled with characters that the late critic Jan Dawson would have called "perfect raincoat men," John Frankenheimer's terse, thrilling film has its resonance with the work of Hitchcock, as some have rightly pointed out, as a pack of spies and mercenaries, which includes Robert DeNiro, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgard, Natascha McElhone and Jonathan Pryce, traverse "To Catch a Thief" territory while scrambling after a MacGuffin-filled suitcase (which, smartly, we never see the contents of). But the mood is different, as these rain-damp, cig-smelling men, brimming with cryptic, yet limitless honor, criss-cross and double-cross along a terrain of yesterday's dinge, of verdigris-burnished corridors and slimy cobbled streets. What on first viewing seemed a superannuated throwback, on reflection seems smashingly new. Anidileuvian but post-millennial, its acute awareness of history -of cinematic form and fashion, of samurai legend, of postwar French cinema, of Cold War espionage fiction and particularly the works of Jean-Pierre Melville, who would tip his Stetson. There's more caffeine quaffed than dialogue gruffed out in "Ronin," but DeNiro, between traditional car chases along winding, snow-dusted mountain roads that demand a nice little exchange of bazooka fire, gets his ration of trademark Mametian quips. "Everyone's your brother until the rent comes due." Exactly so, exactly so. Panavision. 121m.

--Ray Pride

Full Length Reviews
Ronin

Capsule Reviews
Ronin
Ronin
Ronin

Other Films by John Frankenheimer
Seconds
The Island of Dr. Moreau

Film Vault Suggested Links
Fallen
The Edge
Mercury Rising

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