Review of Ronin (1998) by Gavin D — 31 Mar 2015

Ronin begins as one of the more intriguing heist films I've ever seen. The plot is established very efficiently and we are saved long scenes of needless exposition. There's a metal case with something valuable in it, and we meet the team that has been assembled to steal that case. There is limited dialogue, and we get to the action very quickly. In fact I think the first act of the movie is nearly perfect. I have nothing but praise to heap on the cast of Ronin as well. De Niro is an interesting choice for the retired agent who probably once worked for the CIA. He isn't the type of actor I would anticipate for a role like this, but he brings some gravitas that makes it clear he knows more than anyone else in the room (and could probably kill everyone in the room if he wanted to, as well.) Jean Reno is superb in this film as well. He has a similar strength to his character, but you can tell some of that comes from his comfort being in familiar surroundings because he's on his home turf. Stellan Skarsgard is always the wild card in movies like this, and I was genuinely a bit surprised by his character, which means he bluffed me well with his understated performance.

If I were to make one major complaint about Ronin it would be the horrible decision to eliminate Sean Bean from the story so early. He was charming and a bit unpredictable which I really loved. I would have enjoyed seeing his loud-mouth persona butting heads with the stoic Robert De Niro throughout the movie. In fact I was so put off by his disappearance that I kept expecting him to return to the story later on. I started to lose some interest in the second act, when I thought I was going to get nothing but car chases for the next hour. While these chases were filmed brilliantly and certainly had some intensity to them, I wasn't emotionally engaged and started to tune out. The chases and other action sequences started to feel contrived just to keep the adrenaline pumping, but didn't move the story forward as well as some of the more subdued scenes. The final act came together for me a little better, because they didn't do everything quite the way I expected. And I especially liked how they realized there was no need to reveal the contents of the case, because that didn't really matter. It was a MacGuffin in its purest form. By the end I was satisfied with Ronin, but lacked any strong connection to the movie. It's almost one of those that I expect to forget I watched within a few years. If you're interested feel free to check it out, because it won't disappoint you, sadly it also probably won't overly impress you either.