Ronin (1998)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Great Film overall

Boring

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Better than your average action-thriller. Stylish, though plot is unnecessarily complicated. Action is overdone towards the end. Entertaining, nevertheless.

A very good movie with a good storyline,excellent script,acting,setting and pairing between Robert De Niro and Jean Reno.Wish to watch them again together on the screen.

This movie is solid. The actors, especially Deniro, Reno, Natasha and Sean all play their role to perfection. A well written action movie in France. You will have to pay close attention to the dialogue and its subtext to fully understand the movie. Of course it is not perfect and yet I have watched it several times.

This unpretentious thriller with its well-staged explosions, shootouts and high-speed chases, delivers enough excitement to satisfy any action movie fan but what makes it even more entertaining, is its snappy dialogue by David Mamet (credited as Robert Weisz), its top class ensemble cast and some sterling work by the late John Frankenheimer. Its weaknesses are its wafer-thin plot, its under-developed characters and the implausible ways in which the story is advanced at various points (e.g. if you want to find Russians, go to an ice-skating show!!). The action takes place in France and the locations chosen, not only look good, but also add enormously to the atmosphere of the piece.A small team of former covert operations specialists from various countries are brought together in Paris by an enigmatic Irish woman called Deirdre (Natascha McElhone). She appears to be an IRA operative who briefs the team about their forthcoming mission to ambush a convoy of vehicles in order to steal an important metal case for which the Russian mob is prepared to pay generously. Deirdre doesn't disclose any information about what the box contains and is also not very forthcoming when asked to clarify some other operational details that are important to the team members who have considerable expertise in carrying out this type of work.The team, which comprises Americans, Sam (Robert De Niro) and Larry (Skipp Sudduth), Frenchman Vincent (Jean Reno), a German called Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard) and Englishman Spence (Sean Bean), go ahead with the operation as planned but are double crossed by Gregor who steals the coveted case and escapes. He travels to the amphitheatre in Arles where he intends to sell the case to the Russians but gets betrayed by his first contact and then attempts to negotiate a deal with Mikhi (Feodor Atkine) who's the head Russian mobster. After discovering where Gregor had escaped to, Sam and the team head for Arles but a series of further betrayals and killings follow before the truths about Deirdre's boss Seamus O'Rourke (Jonathan Pryce) and Sam's actual mission, become clear.At the end of the Cold War, the lives of the gang-members in this story had mirrored those of the eponymous warriors of feudal Japan who, after becoming masterless, had become wanderers and mercenaries. These highly-trained 1990s men had clearly become jaded by their experiences and their world-weariness is especially well portrayed in the on-screen performances of Robert De Niro, Jean Reno and Stellan Skarsgard. Skarsgard is terrific as one of the villains and De Niro and Reno excel as they show the warmth and trust that develops between their characters in an environment in which it's not easy to trust anyone.The main strength of this movie is its action sequences which are masterfully choreographed, brilliantly edited and remarkably realistic. Tremendous tension is generated during a weapons deal that gets transacted near the Seine, the stunts are highly impressive and the car chases are exceptional. Overall, this movie provides an undemanding but nevertheless highly entertaining way to spend a couple of hours.