Ronin is a 1998 American action thriller film written by John David Zeik and David Mamet (who used the pseudonym of Richard Weisz) and directed by John Frankenheimer. It stars Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Bean, and Jonathan Pryce. In the story, a team of ex-special operatives is hired to steal a mysterious and heavily guarded briefcase while navigating a maze of shifting loyalties. The film is noted for its realistic car chases through Nice and Paris and for its convoluted plot involving the case as a MacGuffin.
Frankenheimer came aboard in 1997 to direct from Zeik's original screenplay, which playwright Mamet rewrote significantly to expand De Niro's role and develop details in the story. Principal photography commenced that same year, in the period from November 3 to March 3, 1998, in France. While the film was shot primarily on location, some interior scenes were filmed on stage. Vehicular stunts were coordinated and performed by professional race car drivers.
Ronin premiered at the 1998 Venice Film Festival before expanding to a wide release on September 25. Although it fared moderately well at the box office, the film enjoyed a warm reception from critics, some of whom recognized a return to form for Frankenheimer. The car chases in Ronin made several media outlets' lists as one of the best portrayed in film.
Video Ronin (film)
Plot
At a bistro in Montmartre, Paris, Irish operative Deirdre meets with ex-special operatives-turned-mercenaries Sam and Larry, both Americans, and Vincent, a Frenchman. She takes them to a warehouse where fellow mercenaries, Englishman Spence and German Gregor, are waiting, and briefs the men on their mission: they have been hired to attack a heavily armed convoy and steal a large metallic briefcase, the contents of which are never revealed. As the team prepares, Deirdre meets with her handler, Seamus O'Rourke, who reveals that the Russian mafia is bidding for the case and the team must intervene. After Spence is exposed as a fraud by Sam and summarily dismissed, the others depart for Nice. Sam and Deirdre develop an attraction to each other during a stakeout. On the day of the sale, Deirdre's team ambush the convoy at La Turbie and pursue the survivors back to Nice. After a gunfight at the port, Gregor steals the case and disappears.
Gregor sells the case to the Russians, but he is forced to kill his contact when he betrays him. He contacts Mikhi, the Russian mobster in charge of the deal, and makes him agree to another meeting. The rest of the team later track Gregor through one of Sam's old CIA contacts and corner him in the Arles Amphitheatre, where he is meeting two of Mikhi's men. Gregor flees but is captured by Seamus, who kills Larry and escapes with Deirdre. Sam gets shot saving Vincent's life and is taken to a villa in Les Baux-de-Provence owned by Vincent's friend Jean-Pierre. After removing the bullet and letting Sam recuperate, Vincent asks Jean-Pierre to help them locate Gregor and the Irish.
Back in Paris, Gregor is brutally interrogated into leading Seamus and Deirdre to a post office, where they retrieve the case. Sam and Vincent pursue them in a high-speed chase, which ends when Vincent shoots out Deirdre's tire and sends her car over a partially constructed overpass before it falls off the edge. Gregor flees with the case while roadworkers save Deirdre and Seamus from the burning vehicle. Sam and Vincent decide to track down the Russians and learn from one of Jean-Pierre's contacts that they are involved with figure skater Natacha Kirilova, Mikhi's girlfriend, who is appearing at the Le Zénith arena.
During his girlfriend's performance that night, Mikhi meets with Gregor, who reveals there is a sniper in the arena who will shoot Natacha if Mikhi betrays him. Mikhi kills Gregor and leaves with the case, letting the sniper kill Natacha. Sam and Vincent follow the panicked mob out of the arena in time to see Seamus shoot Mikhi and steal the case. Sam runs ahead and finds Deirdre waiting in the getaway car; he urges her to leave, revealing himself to be a CIA agent pursuing Seamus, not the case. Deirdre drives away, forcing Seamus to run back to the arena with Sam in pursuit. Seamus ambushes Sam, but is fatally shot by Vincent.
Sometime later, Sam and Vincent talk in the bistro where they first met while a radio broadcast announces that a peace agreement was reached between Sinn Féin and the British government, partly as a result of Seamus' death. Sam looks toward the door expectantly, but Vincent tells him that Deirdre would not be coming back. Sam drives off with his CIA contact. Vincent pays the bill and leaves.
Maps Ronin (film)
Cast
- Robert De Niro as Sam, an American mercenary formerly associated with the CIA. According to director John Frankenheimer, De Niro "was always dream casting" for the film.
- Jean Reno as Vincent, a French gunman who eventually befriends Sam. Frankenheimer sought to make the friendship between Reno's and De Niro's characters appear firmly established as he considered it pivotal to the story's progression, and he wanted to strengthen the bond between the two actors offscreen.
- Natascha McElhone as Deirdre, an IRA elite commissioned to steal a briefcase by Seamus O'Rourke. McElhone had a dialect coach on set to help her speak with a Northern Irish accent.
- Sean Bean as Spence, an English firearms specialist. At one point during production, Frankenheimer had no clue as to what the future held for the character and thought about having him killed by either shooting him offscreen after the team drove out of the warehouse, or snatched from a Parisian street into a van ridden by the IRA. Ultimately, he chose dismissing him from the team.
- Stellan Skarsgård as Gregor, a German computer specialist formerly associated with the KGB. An avid fan of Skarsgård, Frankenheimer commended the Swedish actor for "bring[ing] so much to the role."
- Jonathan Pryce as Seamus O'Rourke, a rogue operative in pursuit of the case through Deirdre. As is the case with McElhone, Welshman Pryce was coached to hone his Northern Irish accent.
- Skipp Sudduth as Larry, another American and the team's designated driver. Sudduth, who had appeared in Frankenheimer's George Wallace (1997), performed most of his driving stunts in the film.
- Michael Lonsdale as Jean-Pierre, a French miniature artist with whom Vincent is well acquainted. Frankenheimer intended to make this character a miniature artist due partly to his love of creating miniatures in his spare time.
- Féodor Atkine as Mikhi, the leader of the Russian mafia.
- Katarina Witt as Natacha Kirilova, a famous Russian figure skater. Witt aspired to become an actress despite having made a career as a figure skater in real life; incidentally, Frankenheimer had always wanted to shoot an ice-skating sequence in one of his pictures and cast her in the film.
Production
John David Zeik, a newcomer to the film industry, conceived of the idea for Ronin after reading James Clavell's novel Sh?gun at age 15. It gave him enough background on who r?nin (masterless samurai) were, and he incorporated this concept into a screenplay he wrote years later. On choosing France as the story's key location, Zeik said: "Many years in Nice, I stared into the sun and saw the silhouettes of five heavily-armed Gendarmes crossing the Promenade des Anglais. That image made me realize that I wanted to set the film in France."
According to Zeik's attorney, playwright David Mamet was brought in just before production to expand De Niro's role as well as add a female love interest and rewrote several scenes, although his contributions were minor. Director John Frankenheimer, though, said Mamet's contributions were far more significant: "The credits should read: 'Story by J.D. Zeik, screenplay by David Mamet'. We didn't shoot a line of Zeik's script." On learning he would have to share screenwriting credit with Zeik, Mamet insisted he be credited under the pseudonym Richard Weisz having decided earlier he would only attach his name to projects where he was the sole writer.
Frankenheimer came on board as the director of Ronin in 1997. He described the project as "a tough movie ... something one has to pay attention, because otherwise you're out to lunch." Frankenheimer resolved to direct the film largely because of his broad knowledge of France--especially Paris--which stemmed from his time spent as a foreigner in the country. His films The Train (1963), Grand Prix (1966), Impossible Object (1973), and French Connection II (1975) had been shot in France. According to Frankenheimer, French authorities helped him get around a strict Paris ordinance that prohibits film productions from firing guns in the city. This had been enacted after extended civilian complaints of blaring gunfire sounds produced by production crews filming shootings on location. Two factors influenced the decision: the officials had longed for an American action film like Ronin to be made in Paris as not many had been shot since the law was passed, and they wanted to boost France's reputation as a principal location to shoot films.
Many of Ronin's principal crew members had worked before with Frankenheimer on television films he directed: Tony Gibbs, his film editor on George Wallace, Michael Z. Hanan, his production designer on Wallace and The Burning Season (1994), and May Routh, his costume designer on Andersonville (1996). Frankenheimer chose French cinematographer Robert Fraisse to help him achieve the look and style he envisioned for the film. He impressed the director with his work on the police thriller Citizen X (1995), which convinced Frankenheimer that Fraisse could handle the more than 2,000 individual setups he planned for Ronin. Frank Mancuso Jr. served as the film's producer.
Filming and cinematography
The film was produced on a budget of $55 million. Principal photography lasted 78 days, commencing on November 3, 1997 in an abandoned workshop in Aubervilliers. Scenes from Porte des Lilas and the historic Arles Amphitheatre were filmed in November 1997. The crew then shot footages at Hotel Majestic in Cannes, La Turbie, and Villefranche. Production was put on hold for Christmas on December 19, 1997, and resumed on January 5, 1998, at Épinay, where the crew constructed two interior sets on sound stages: one for the bistro at Montmartre and another for the rural farmhouse, both of which have separate exterior shots done on location. The climactic sequence occurred at the Le Zénith arena, which hired about 2,000 extras. Filming then wrapped on March 3, 1998 at La Défense.
Because the production had no director and cameraman dedicated for the second unit, Frankenheimer worked on these with cinematographer Robert Fraisse for another 30 days when filming concluded, during which time the action scenes were filmed. The first car-chase sequence was shot in La Turbie and Nice (in the city's narrow streets of Old Nice), and the rest through Paris, in areas such as La Défense and the Pont du Garigliano bridge. Tunnel scenes were shot at night because it was impossible to block their roads during the day. The freeway chase, where the actors dodge oncoming vehicles, was done in four hours on a closed road.
Frankenheimer's affinity for depth of field compelled him to shoot the film entirely with wide-angle lenses (ranging from 18 to 35 mm) and the Super 35 format, both of which allowed more of the scene included within each shots. In addition, he avoided bright primary colors on set in favor of preserving the quality of the first generation of film. To achieve this end, he advised the actors not to wear bright primary colors, and processed the film using the Color Contrast Enhancement (CCE) process from Deluxe, which amplifies the blacks and mutes the primary colors. Fraisse said in American Cinematographer magazine that he used a variety of cameras to facilitate the director's ambitious photographic demands, including Panaflexes for dialogue scenes, and Arriflex 435s and 35-IIIs for the car-chase sequences. The use of Steadicam--a camera stabilizer--constituted half of the entire shoot and was operated by Frankenheimer's longtime collaborator David Crone. According to Frankenheimer, a total of 2,200 individual shots were filmed.
Stunts
When filming the car-chase scenes, Frakenheimer eschewed special effects, previsualized them through storyboards and used the same camera mounts as those on Grand Prix. He preferred placing the actors inside the cars, driven by Formula One driver Jean-Pierre Jarier, and high performance drivers Jean-Claude Lagniez and Michel Neugarten, at speeds of up to 100 mph (160 km/h). The actors had enrolled at a high performance driving school before production began. According to car stunt coordinator Lagniez, it was a priority not to cheat the speed by adjusting the frame rate because, "When you do, it affects the lighting. It is different at 20 frames than at 24 frames." Fraisse, though, admitted that "Sometimes, but not very often, we did shoot at 22 frames per second, or 21." Point-of-view shots from the cars were utilized to add a heightened sense of speed.
For the final chase sequence, which used a total of 300 stunt drivers, the production team bought four BMW M5s and five Peugeot 406s, cutting one of each in half and towing them with a Mercedes-Benz 500 E while the actors were in them. Right-hand drive versions of these cars were also purchased, installed with a dummy steering wheel on the left side where the actors pretended to drive while the stunt drivers drove the speeding vehicles. The final chase included almost no film score because Frankenheimer felt music and sound effects do not mesh well when played together. Sound engineer Mike Le Mare postrecorded all the cars in the film on a racetrack mixing them later in post-production.
Frankenheimer approached the gunfight sequences with the same level of verisimilitude, refusing to film these with slow motion techniques in the belief that on-screen violence should happen in real time. A former member of the Special Air Service was on standby, and shared experiences of weapon handling and military tactics with the actors. Physical stunts were coordinated by Joe Dunne.
Style and influences
The film's foreign title was derived from the Japanese legend of r?nin, a samurai whose leader was killed and left with no one to serve; disgraced, they roamed the countryside and work as swords-for-hire and bandits to find a sense of purpose. In the film, the r?nin are depicted as former intelligence operatives who find themselves unemployed at the end of the Cold War; devoid of purpose, they become high-paid mercenaries. Halfway through the film, Michael Lonsdale's character elaborates on the analogy with an anecdote of the 47 r?nin through miniatures, which relates to the characters as a manifestation of the r?nin. In his essay "Action and Abstraction in Ronin", Stephen Prince said the r?nin metaphor explores themes of "service, honor, and obligation to complex ways by showing that service may entail betrayal and that honor may be measured according to disparate terms," while Stephen B. Armstrong, in his book Pictures About Extremes, wrote that "Arguably Frankenheimer uses this story to highlight and contrast the moral and social weakness that characterize the band of r?nin in his film."
The elusive briefcase in Ronin has also been cited as an example of the MacGuffin, a term popularized by filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock which he defined as an object to which the characters are remarkably drawn although its value is not equally important to each of them. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert jokingly suggested that its content is the equally mysterious case from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune asserted that Ronin is an homage to The French Connection (1971), The Parallax View (1974), and Three Days of the Condor (1975)--thriller films popularly known for their absence of visual effects. Maitland McDonagh at TV Guide generally echoed this sentiment, while likening it also to The Day of the Jackal (1973). Wilmington also pointed out similarities between Ronin's opening scene and that of Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992), where a group of professional killers who have not met before are also assembled. Armstrong said the plot of Ronin espouses the conventions of heist films.
According to Frankenheimer, he had always instilled a hyperrealistic aesthetic in his films "to make them look realer than real, because reality by itself can be very boring," and viewed them as having a tinge of semi-documentary. He credited Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966), a film he considered flawless and highly influential than any other pictures he had seen, for implementing this style. Prince argued that "Frankenheimer's success at working in this realist style, avoiding special effects trickery, places the car chase in Ronin in the same rarefied class as the celebrated chase in Bullitt (1968)." Frankenheimer also credited the Russian film The Cranes Are Flying (1957) for employing some invisible cuts in the film. On the film's DVD audio commentary, for instance, he points out a wipe during the opening scenes made by two extras by walking across the frame, which is then invisibly transitioned to a tracking shot of Jean Reno entering the bistro. His intention for the cut was to conceal the fact the bistro's interior was a set while the exterior was shot on location.
Alternate endings
Frankenheimer shot two versions of the film's ending. In the first, Deirdre (McElhone) waits on the stairs next to the bistro and considers joining Sam (De Niro) and Vincent (Reno). Deciding against it, she walks up the stairs. As she is getting into her car, she is snatched into a van by men in the IRA who call her a traitor. It is implied that she is later killed. Sam and Vincent finish their conversation and depart, completely unaware of what has just happened. Frankenheimer said the test audience "hated" this ending because they were not in favor of seeing Deirdre die. Despite this, he prefers it and thought it "really worked." The second ending simply shows Deirdre walking to her car after Sam and Vincent leave the bistro. This, too, was rejected because it was verging on being "too Hollywood"--appearing as if it is hinting on a sequel. Ultimately, he yielded to the test audience's response and kept neither of these endings.
Music
Jerry Goldsmith was originally commissioned to compose the score for Ronin, but left the project for unknown reasons. The Executive Vice President of MGM music, Michael Sandoval, assembled "A-list" composers as a replacement. Of the three chosen by Sandoval, Frankenheimer hired Czech composer Elia Cmiral, who recalled that he "was far away from being even a 'B' composer at that time." After attending a private screening of the film's final version, Cmiral thought of writing its main theme which, at Frankenheimer's behest, would incorporate qualities of "sadness, loneliness, and heroism." To achieve this goal, Cmiral performed with the duduk, an ancient double-reed woodwind flute that originated in Armenia. Cmiral sent a demo to Frankenheimer who "loved" it, and landed full responsibility as the film's composer. The theme was kept in the opening scenes, titled "Ronin Theme".
Ronin marked Cmiral's first score project for a major studio. It was recorded over the course of seven weeks at CTS Studio in London, England. It was orchestrated and conducted by Nick Ingman, edited by Mike Flicker, and recorded and mixed by John Whynot. Varèse Sarabande released the soundtrack album on compact disc in September 1998. Writing for AllMusic, Jason Ankeny scored the album 4.5/5 and remarked that it delivers "profoundly visceral listening experience, illustrating an expert grasp of pacing and atmosphere."
Release
Ronin had its world premiere at the 1998 Venice Film Festival on September 12 before expanding to a wide release on September 25. The film fared moderately well at the box office; it was the second highest-grossing film in its United States opening weekend, grossing $12.7 million behind the action comedy Rush Hour's $26.7 million, across 2,643 locations. The film dropped to fifth place in its second weekend and seventh in its third, grossing $9.4 million and $6.5 million at 2,487 locations. The film dropped further until its sixth weekend, at which point it grossed $1.1 million at 13th place at 1,341 locations. Overall, the film grossed $41.6 million in the US and Canada and $70.7 million worldwide. Ronin was the 11th highest-grossing R-rated film in 1998.
MGM Home Entertainment released Ronin in a two-disc DVD in February 1999, presented in either widescreen or pan and scan, and Dolby Digital 5.1. The DVD contains an audio commentary by director John Frankenheimer, where he discusses the history behind Ronin's production, and the film's alternate ending. MGM released a special edition DVD of the film in October 2004, and a two-disc collector's edition in May 2006, both issued with an abundance of extras featuring cast and crew interviews which are not available on the first DVD.
MGM released the film for the first time on Blu-ray in February 2009, devoid of supplements other than the film's theatrical trailer. Arrow Video issued a special edition Blu-ray in August 2017, derived from 4K scans of the original camera negatives turned over by cinematographer Robert Fraisse. Arrow's Blu-ray carries a combination of archival bonus features that originally appeared on the MGM DVD versions, while also providing a few new ones: "Close Up" in which Fraisse reminisces about his early cinematography career and briefly discusses his involvement on Ronin, and "You Talkin' To Me?" which focuses entirely on filmmaker Quentin Tarantino providing anecdotes about Robert De Niro.
Reception
Ronin was well received by the press upon release. Numerous critics were enthusiastic about the ensemble cast, often singling out Robert De Niro for further praise. Variety credited him with sustaining the film, although a reviewer from the Chicago Reader disagreed. Likewise, the action scenes--particularly the car chases--were generally praised; The New York Times complimented them as "nothing short of sensational." Despite the praise these scenes drew occasional criticism from The Washington Post for being lengthy, and Variety for the excessive use of jump cuts. Even so, many argued that these were utilized effectively with Robert Fraisse's cinematography, prompting Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune to commend his effort as superficially attractive and entertaining. Some reviewers singled out the espionage scene involving De Niro and Natascha McElhone--in which they pose as tourists and snap photographs of their targets at a hotel in Cannes--as one of the best in the film. Richard Schickel for Time lauded Ronin as "a sly masterpiece".
Critics have also commented on Frankenheimer's direction of Ronin. The wide acclaim he received with the political thriller film The Manchurian Candidate (1962) established his career. Many said his approach was influenced by the works of fellow filmmaker and close friend Jean-Pierre Melville, particularly Melville's neo-noir film Le Samouraï (1967), but Variety argued that Ronin requires a "world-weary, existential ennui" for this to be the case. Although the story was criticized by the Chicago Reader for inducing boredom and The Washington Post as derivative, The Chicago Tribune was lenient and called it "familiar but taut tale." The Tribune went on to argue that Ronin was Frankenheimer's best theatrical film in decades despite lacking the creative fervor of The Manchurian Candidate, while critics such as Peter Travers at Rolling Stone regarded it as a return to form for the director.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 68% based on reviews from 62 critics, and an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's critical consensus states, "This is comparable to French Connection with great action, dynamic road chase scenes, and solid performances." Metacritic gives it an average score of 67% based on 23 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore during opening weekend gave the film an average grade of "C+" on a scale ranging from A+ to F. The car chases in Ronin made several media outlets' lists as one of the best portrayed in film: CNN (No. 2), Time (No. 12), The Daily Telegraph (No. 10), PopMatters and IGN (No. 9), Screen Rant (No. 8), Business Insider (No. 3) and Collider. Screen Rant also ranked it No. 1 on their 12 Best Action Movies You've Never Heard Of. In 2014, Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films. Ronin was listed at 72nd place on this list.
Cultural impact
Ronin influenced the conception of two action video games: Burnout and Alpha Protocol.
Footnotes
References
External links
- Ronin on IMDb
- Ronin at the TCM Movie Database
- Ronin at the Internet Movie Firearms Database
- Ronin at the Internet Movie Cars Database
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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