Ronin (1998)

“In feudal Japan, the warrior class of samurai were sworn to protect their liege lords with their lives. Those samurai whose liege was killed suffered a great shame, and they were forced to wander the land, looking for work as hired swords or bandits. These masterless warriors were no longer referred to as Samurai; they were known by another name: such men were called RONIN.” Released in 1998 and Directed by legendary filmmaker John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Reindeer Games), the film tells the story about a group of covert international mercenaries, including a former CIA agent named Sam (Robert De Niro), who are assembled in France by a mysterious client for a seemingly routine mission: steal a heavily guarded, top-secret briefcase, that is wanted by the Russian mafia. But greed, political maneuvering and shifting loyalties lead to betrayal and murder. De Niro leads an all star international cast of actors that includes Jean Reno (Léon: The Professional) as French former Euro Intelligence agent Vincent, Natasha McElhone (The Truman Show) as Irish IRA organizer Deirdre, Stellan Skarsgård (Pirates of the Caribbean II & III) as former German KGB electronics expert Gregor, Sean Bean (007 - GoldenEye) as British weapons wrangler Spence, Skipp Sudduth (TV’s Third Watch) as American driver Larry, Michael Lonsdale (007 - Moonraker) as Vincent’s friend Jean-Pierre, and Jonathan Pryce (Brazil) as Deirdre’s Irish handler Seamus O’Rourke. Filmed from November 1997 to March 1998 throughout Paris, France, with an estimated budget of $55,000,000, Frankenheimer said on the film’s DVD commentary that 2,200 shots were used to film the story. He also notes that the film is unusual in containing no wipes, dissolves or similar techniques; all scene transitions are handled with suitably paced cuts. The film is noted for its sensational car chases, which I thought were fantastic to watch. As a former amateur racing driver, Car work has been a specialty of Frankenheimer, ever since his 1966 film, Grand Prix. The cars that were used in the film are the Audi S8, a Peugeot 406, a Citroën Xantia and XM, a BMW M5 and Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, and a rare Mercedes-Benz W116 variant with a high-powered engine. Sudduth did his own driving in some of the scenes himself, while other cars were driven by stunt drivers, one of them was Formula 1 driver Jean-Pierre Jarier, using right hand drive models, and a total of 80 automobiles were destroyed during the filming. Frankenheimer wanted to film all the sequences live, to obtain the maximum level of authenticity, instead of using digital special effects. When it was released at the 1998 Venice Film Festival on September 12th, and then 12 days later in the U.S., RONIN grossed over $12,697,641 its opening weekend. All and all, I consider RONIN one of the greatest action movies of all time. And it was directed by “a master of intelligent thrillers”, said Roger Ebert.