Reader Recommends: Ronin (1998)

A long time ago I got a recommendation from @tokenuser on twitter to watch Ronin. I wasn't sure what it was, but guessed it would be a ninja or samurai movie, based on the name. Boy was I wrong. Once I looked into it after going through my huge list of recommended movies, I saw that it was a crime movie starring Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno. Well everyone knows how good DeNiro is, and after seeing Leon the Professional I had to see more Jean Reno! I have to admit, I had some very high hopes and I was quite excited to see it. Sometimes this can work against you, but it would be hard to be disappointed by these two teamed up. Jump into action!


Robert DeNiro plays Sam, an ex-CIA operative who is hired on a freelance job to get a mysterious package. He won't be working alone though. There is someone for all uses, a skilled driver, a weapons expert, a tech expert, and then there's Vincent (Reno) who knows the area and can get you whatever you need. Of course, just to make things interesting, they're not the only ones after this metal case. While they've been hired by the Irish, the Russians are also trying to get it. The only way to snatch it will be to intercept it while the Russians try to buy it from its current holders. Let the action begin!


In my opinion Ronin is a film with a lot of hits and only a few minor misses. I won't bother getting much into acting, because DeNiro and Reno were great and was expected. Actually, most of the cast was quite good. Sean Bean made a good Spence, for what little time he was around. Natascha McElhone, who some may know from Californication was pretty good as Deirdre who brought the team together and had a fun scene towards the end. Even Stellan Skarsgard, as the tech expert Gregor stood out in the last half.

Lots of cool gun fights

This is a fairly long movie, or at least it felt like it sometimes. I think this is primarily because just when you think it's going to be over, something else happens and the movie picks up again with a whole second act. While it seems like there's a lot of down-time, when the action picks up, it keeps going for quite a while. There are tons of gun fights, and actually a surprising amount of car chases. And then there's the gun fights while in the car chases! Ok, so maybe that last combo only happens a few times.

The car chase scenes are probably some of the best I've seen in a long time on film. While not much crazy over-the-top stuff happens, the straight forward chase feels really fast and has a good amount of tension built into it. I believe the tension comes from the fact that the chase looks so grounded and real due directly from the lack of crazy over-the-top stunts. I really liked that they would focus in on the sounds of the car's engines and shifting too. It really gave it that little extra "Umph!"

Lots of car chases and shooting from cars

There was something else that really stood out to me in Ronin. In most action movies, when the bullets start flying, everyone becomes Spider-Man, and has the ability to get out of the way of all the shots. It's actually pretty rare that someone gets hit, unless they're nameless badguy #3. In Ronin a similar thing happens, the heroes rarely get hit, but in place of this, we see civilians get shot up and murdered ALL THE TIME. There's one scene in front of a market and Jean Reno's Vincent has to dive out of the way of some gun fire. Yes, he manages to get out of the way, but a bunch of people who were behind him totally bite it! The bad guys just kept firing into crowds and you'd see innocent bystanders get hit, blood and all. It was actually kind of shocking, but cool too.

The last thing I'm going to mention, and this is a bit of a spoiler, but very minor, is that Sam (DeNiro) gets hit in a gunfight at one point. They take him to a friend to get him fixed up, and since he's the only one who really knows what to do, he directs Vincent in how to remove the bullet while he's awake and totally without any pain killers at all. This has to be one of the most hard to watch scenes I've ever seen. It's not particularly gory, but the pain that Sam seems to be going through is just so hard to watch. It was a very good scene, filled to the brim with tension.

This was sooo painful to watch

I liked Ronin quite a bit. It was a little slow sometimes, and the fact that it was in English, Russian, and French all at once made the subtitles annoying. Why can't we have dvds that only put English subs on the non-English, and not just for the whole entire movie? My DaVinci Code bluray is the same way! So annoying. Anyways, I liked the movie and it had a lot of different things to offer me with all the action, cars, drama, spying, and a final venue I never would have seen coming. Give this film a shot, even if it's just to see the cool team-up of Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno.