Ronin

Directed by John Frankenheimer, Ronin follows a crew of criminals, including Robert De Niro’s Sam, Jean Reno’s Vincent, and Natascha McElhone’s Deirdre, as they set out to steal a mysterious briefcase from several heavily-armed figures. Filmmaker Frankenheimer, working from J.D. Zeik and Richard Weisz’s screenplay, delivers an erratically-paced yet often thrilling endeavor that benefits from its stellar performances and smattering of enthralling interludes, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that Ronin contains some of the best and most exciting car chases ever committed to celluloid – with the impact of such sequences heightened by the grittiness with which Frankenheimer has infused them (ie everything, for the most part, feels dangerous and real). And although the picture’s deliberate pace (and slightly overlong running time) periodically does hold the viewer at arms length, Ronin, which also boasts compelling, heavily-stylized instances of dialogue, builds towards a satisfying climax that effectively ties up the various threads within the (sometimes confusing) narrative – with the end result a top-notch actioner that admittedly could’ve used a little streamlining.

*** out of ****