'Ronin'
The Ringer's Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan never walk into a place they don't know how to walk out of after they rewatch the 1998 action thriller 'Ronin,' starring Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, and Natascha McElhone.
Cast
Robert De Niro as Sam
Jean Reno as Vincent
Natascha McElhone as Deirdre
Stellan Skarsgård as Gregor
Sean Bean as Spence
Jonathan Pryce as Seamus
Skip Sudduth as Larry
Directed by: John Frankenheimer
Written by: David Mamet
Notes
- Arguably the first great DVD release (February 1999) – 2-disc set with widescreen, Dolby 5.1, alternate ending, Frankenheimer commentary.
- $55 million budget, made $70 million – 44th biggest film of 1998.
- David Mamet rewrote the screenplay under the pseudonym 'Richard Weisz' because he didn't receive sole credit.
- 80 automobiles were destroyed during filming.
- Frankenheimer avoided special effects in car chases; did his own storyboards and camera mounts.
- Actors were driven up to 100 mph by Formula One / high-performance drivers.
- De Niro failed the high-performance driving course – 'every time we see him driving he looks like the old lady at the end of Ferris Bueller'.
- Arguably De Niro's last great starring role until 'Silver Linings Playbook' (~20 year gap).
- Two alternate endings were filmed; Frankenheimer preferred the one where Deirdre gets abducted by the IRA but test audiences hated it.
- Frankenheimer's comeback after the Island of Dr. Moreau disaster – he said 'now get this asshole off my set' when Val Kilmer wrapped.
Categories
Quote from Rog's review:
“Here with the fine cast Frankenheimer does what is essentially an entertaining exercise. Not really about anything, but if it were it might have really amounted to something.”
- The second big chase scene – wrong-way highway driving, Gregor putting on seatbelt; one of the best car chases ever committed to film.
- De Niro turning on Sean Bean – 'What's the color of the boathouse at Hereford?' / 'Draw it again'.
- The first big shootout/chase scene with the switching-cases gimmick.
- Final scene – De Niro and Jean Reno having coffee, 'no questions, no answers'.
- The sense of place / on-location filming in the South of France – gritty, gray, no green screen.
- The way the movie changes its stakes/genre two or three times.
- The first hour's slow build with no breadcrumbs about who the characters are.
- Natascha McElhone's outfits – have now come back into style.
- The De Niro / Deirdre romantic subplot feels shoehorned – no buildup, comes out of nowhere.
- The score – feels very 1970s.
- The stunt-double seams – a clearly 22-year-old double stands in for De Niro in the sunroof scene.
Sean Bean – 'definitely wins the Vincent Hanna Award... he's just styled up'.
- Skip Sudduth as Larry (Bill's pick).
- Michael Lonsdale as the model maker/surgeon – also appeared in Day of the Jackal (Chris's pick).
Sean Bean – walks his team into an ambush, freaks out, wildly shoots a machine gun, throws up, says 'job well done,' then gets exposed as a fraud. Won both over-acting and heat-check – compared to 'winning MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season'.
- 80 automobiles destroyed during filming.
- Actors enrolled in high-performance driving school; De Niro failed the course.
- Point-of-view shots from cameras mounted below the car's front fenders (same technique as French Connection).
- Two alternate endings were filmed; the radio announcement about Irish peace was added last.
- Stellan Skarsgard – had 'Ronin' and 'Good Will Hunting' in the same year.
- John Frankenheimer – no, Manchurian Candidate is his apex.
- Jean Reno – no, The Professional is his apex.
- Movies with mysterious suitcases that get switched – possibly apex mountain for this sub-genre.
- The complete lack of law enforcement in France – a countrywide crime spree causing dozens of casualties, yet cops never seem that concerned.
- The second chase ends with a car crash and explosion, and De Niro and Jean Reno are just standing at the top of the highway shooting – no cops.
Could either expand this story or do 'The Further Adventures of Sam' as a 10-episode Netflix show.
- What was actually in the briefcase? (Likely nuclear codes or plutonium).
- Is De Niro a bad athlete? Has he ever convincingly thrown anything in a movie?
- Who won the career battle between Natascha McElhone and Famke Janssen?
John Frankenheimer – 'you make the case it's the best movie he ever made, which was inconceivable in the mid-90s'.