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Ronin (1998) Behind all the car chases and cloak & dagger skulduggery, Ronin communicates a surprisingly simple jeremiad about trust and loyalty amongst lost souls. It also boasts some of the best nonverbal acting and car chases in film history.  The film's opening text and Kurosawa-esque title card—as well as its second act—beg for comparisons to feudal Japan, where ronin bore the shame of allowing their masters to die. Ronin paints its protagonists as bearing shame from the end of the Cold War. In a way, the film asks us, "In a time of peace, what becomes of warriors?" The Kurosawa comparison becomes appropriate, as Seven Samurai asks the same question. On its surface, the film has always felt to me like a more visceral, more frank mirror-image of 1996's Mission: Impossible. Both prominently feature Europe—including Paris—and both have the same ostensible plot: a group of spies execute an intricate mission to retrieve a valuable MacGuffin, but a betrayal throws everything into a tailspin and leaves only a few operatives left to undo the damage and complete a mission of their own. (The Bourne Identity and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy would also contain shades of both films.) Where Mission: Impossible (and to a much greater extent, its sequels) puts the emphasis on action and spectacle, Ronin focuses squarely on the struggles of the characters to remain relevant in a world that has apparently outgrown them. The contrast becomes apparent in the general execution of both films. Mission: Impossible boasts impossibly-attractive secret agents infiltrating a black-tie party at an embassy in Prague and the CIA headquarters in Langley, culminating in a complex, clearly-physically-impossible chase in the English Channel. Ronin features nondescript agents in dingy Parisian cafés and hotels trying to do their work as inconspicuously as possible. The car chase that serves as this film's coda communicates only the failure of its actors to keep the conflict from escalating out of control. The films have a completely different attitide toward exposition as well. Mission: Impossible rains exposition from start to finish. Ronin has operatives brought together by "the man in the wheelchair" from Bristol—an unseen character—to retrieve a briefcase—a MacGuffin whose contents never become known to the viewer.  The photography betrays Ronin's muted character as well. As Walter Hill did with The Warriors, Frankenheimer uses his incredible understanding of Paris and a damp sheen of rain over the exteriors to find the beauty in the dirt and the grit of the city. The characters and props all boast drab, desaturated colors, and Frankenheimer treated the film with Deluxe's Color Contrast Enhancement process to enhance the blacks and dampen the primary colors, transforming this huge, venerable city into a neo-noirish sea of anonymity. In the film's commentary, Frankenheimer mentioned using Super 35, with its spherical lenses, and the 2.33 aspect ratio to create wide shots that allowed for sprawling shots that would translate well to full-screen. He makes heavy use of depth of field so as to tell multiple stories in a single frame, which comes in handy in this film in particular since so many of the actors use their body language in lieu of exposition. Most of the film's compositions have their main elements to an extreme side or a line of sight that leads the eye in an arc above or below the center of the screen. In keeping the eye off the very center of the film, in conjunction with the tight control of information the viewer receives, Frankenheimer keeps the viewer feeling off-balance and suspicious in a Hitchcockian fashion.  Just look at this shot of the principal characters. Its muted tone shows a team of men used to living under the radar. The body language says everything. Bean's character has all too much to prove, as the wide-angle shot makes him the largest and "loudest" element on the screen. De Niro's character silently surveys the scene. Reno's character stolidly flanks De Niro, already fond of his new friend. Skarsgård appears weary and pensive, Sudduth insouciant and indifferent. -  Compare that with this shot of the team from Mission: Impossible. By comparison, this shot looks far more inert in composition, color, and the mannerisms of the actors. The film's droll dialog comes courtesy of David Mamet. Mamet ended up with the Alan Smithee treatment, as he disapproved of sharing equal credit with story creator J.D. Zeik. Although I strongly disagree with Mamet's political views (I specifically take offense to an occasion in which he implied that all Arabs want to wipe out Israelis), I admit that he writes a mean screenplay, and Ronin serves as an interesting example of Mamet-speak without the Mamet-rhythm seen perhaps most prominently in Glengarry Glen Ross, The Spanish Prisoner, and Redbelt. The dialog has a momentum to it that clearly indicates the power dynamics in every scene, much like Inglourious Basterds.  Robert De Niro plays Sam, the punctilious, authoritative, nigh-supernaturally perceptive American field leader and protagonist. Even this shot's composition says a lot about Sam. Notice how he hides at the far side of the screen, always surveying and then making judgments therefrom. Here, we see him reconnoitering a Parisian café at the beginning of the film, making sure he can walk in and get back out safely. Also notice his nondescript attire. As one would expect of a spy, Sam considers overt attention his worst enemy. More than any of the other characters, Sam appears hyper-aware; he studies his surroundings assiduously, continuously. He does everything within his power to reduce the element of surprise.  Jean Reno plays Vincent, a French armorer. At first glance, Reno appears to reprise his roles in Léon: The Professional and Mission: Impossible as an adroit hitman. Reno expertly distinguishes between all three roles with noverbal nuance. Vincent becomes Leone's opposite in naïveté and Krieger's opposite in loyalty and bonhomie, making three similar characters on paper into three radically different people on the screen. In Vincent, we see a worldly, enervated veteran of French Intelligence, but one with a moral compass.  Sean Bean plays Spence, an English weapons expert. Spence and Sam get off to a bad start almost immediately. Sam sees through Spence's braggadocio and takes note of his restiveness and anomie. Bean does an excellent job communicating in Spence the chasm between his true self and what he shows the rest of his team.  Real-life amateur stunt-driver (and polymath) Skipp Sudduth plays Larry, the American wheel-man (and, during the prep phase, their cook). Frankenheimer would draw on Sudduth's experience in his character, having Sudduth perform the vast majority of his character's driving. Sudduth tore up the streets in a 1998 Audi S8 D2, obeying Frankenheimer's command to spare the brakes with notable alacrity.  Stellan Skarsgård plays Gregor, the acquisitive, reticent, phlegmatic, sociopathic East German tech expert. Skarsgård amazes me with every role. He has the face of a mild-mannered businessman, but he shows an uncanny ability to convey real menace at the drop of a hat. As the only ex-KGB member on the team, Sam quickly assesses Gregor as more than he appears. Gregor's wardrobe consists mostly of grays and olive green/brown, making him look distinctly Soviet and like a man who shows only a small fraction of his true nature. In a way that becomes increasingly clear as the film progresses, Gregor serves as Sam's equal and opposite.  Natasha McElhone plays Dierdre, the team's stern, impatient, seemingly insensate Northern Irish boss. She works for the IRA, but we quickly come to see her as middle management. She attempts to assert power over her men, but as the story progresses it becomes clear that parties above and below her intended her operation to fail from the start. The conflict between projecting the appearance of power and operating under the thumb of her IRA superiors defines Dierdre; in a film with large amounts of phallic imagery (i.e. guns, cars), I find it a very appropriate way to depict a young woman hip-deep in an underworld much bigger than her. I think it helps that McElhone, then relatively inexperienced, had the onerous task of playing the boss of thespian titans like De Niro and Skarsgård. Dierdre strikes me as an anti-femme fatale. Although she and Sam clearly have chemistry, she seems to have little interest in using guile or seduction to get her way. Her facility with phallic symbols such as guns and cars makes her seem more tomboyish than your average neo-noir woman. One could see why a woman like her would interest a detail-oriented, task-oriented operative like Sam.  Jonathan Pryce plays Seamus O'Rourke, Dierdre's handler, a putative major player within the IRA and one of the main antagonists. Seamus drives much of the film's action, with his designs on the briefcase and the team (such as it becomes) motivating most of the characters. Pryce's grinch-like visage and mannerisms make him perhaps the most menacing character in the entire film. As soon as he walks in the frame and the score turns south, we know he has something planned that doesn't benefit anyone but himself.  Thematically, the most important scene in the film—and the scene that sets this film apart from some cookie-cutter spy flick—takes place in a French villa owned by Michael Lonsdale's character Jean-Pierre, a friend of Vincent's. Jean-Pierre explains to Sam the story of the 47 ronin. The story parallels the plot itself: Sam himself seeks revenge after a mission gone awry. Like the ronin of legend, Sam has the patience to plan and execute a long game (making this post-second act interlude an appropriate place for this scene). Of course, the title of the film refers mostly to the nature of its characters: highly-skilled operatives rendered obsolete in a changing landscape of Intelligence. I find myself wondering now how the survivors of this film would fare in a post-9/11 world, with a different kind of warfare and a different enemy in a different part of the world. Would they find their skill sets even more obsolete? Would they find even more appreciative new employers? Of course, those questions lie beyond the scope of the film itself, but the juxtaposition of the geopolitical sphere now as opposed to even 15 years ago raises a lot of interesting questions.  The film's third act turns on a car chase that stands as one of the best I've ever seen. This film could go toe-to-toe with White Lightning or The Blues Brothers! A screen-shot does as good a job showing a car-chase as a written measure of a single instrument does of showing the beauty of a song, but we can still see here the high-speed, frenetic feeling of the scene. The scene depicts a blue 1996 Peugeot 406 dueling with a black 1991 BMW 535i. In a sense, the entire car chase feels vaguely sexual, considering Sam and Dierdre serve as the dueling drivers. The dance of the cars seems almost like a strange sort of seduction between two people not in the business of wearing their feelings on their sleeves.  Katarina Witt plays Natacha Kirilova, an ice skater whose performance serves as the setting for the film's final climax, the sale of the mysterious briefcase to the Russian mafia. Frankenheimer has confessed a passion for miniatures and ice skating, probably why both ended up in the film. In addition to playing a complicit conspirator in a deal with the Russian mafia in this film, Witt posed for Playboy afterwards in an attempt to shed her cutesy image.  I found the final shot of the film strikingly appropriate. Vincent—whom by now we've come to see as the character who best embodies the film's idea of a "ronin"—walks away from the last vestige of this mission, ready to return to life as a nobody in Montmartre. You might ask yourself, "Where can I watch this amazing film?" Netflix Instant has it, as do Amazon Instant and YouTube to rent. So for the price of a cup of coffee for 1-3 days, really, you have no excuse. Complete Movie of the Month Listing: 1776 | 2001: A Space Odyssey | 24 Hour Party People | 8 1/2 | The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension | Aguirre: The Wrath of God | All That Jazz | American Movie | Baraka | The Battle of Algiers | Being There | Bicycle Thief | Black Hawk Down | Branded to Kill | Breaking Away | The Bridge on the River Kwai | Bullet in the Head | Charade | Chitty Chitty Bang Bang | The Conversation | The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover | Day For Night | The Court Jester | Death Race 2000 | Darkman | Detour | Devils on the Doorstep | Double Indemnity | Downfall | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | El Topo | Falling Down | A Face In The Crowd | Fanny and Alexander | Fat City | Funny Bones | Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai | Glengarry Glen Ross | Gremlins 2: The New Batch | Horor of Dracula | La Haine | The Ice Storm | The Intruder | It's a Wonderful Life | Jumanji | The King of Comedy | Last Train From Gun Hill | The Leopard | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | Little Shop of Horrors | Living in Oblivion | The Long Goodbye | Love & Death | M | Masculin Féminin | Man on Fire | The Man Who Would Be King | Modern Times | Mulholland Drive | My Best Friend's Wedding | My Darling Clementine | My Own Private Idaho | Naked | Outland | Peeping Tom | Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Play Time | The Proposition | Punishment Park | The Pusher Trilogy | Rififi/Rashômon | The Ref | Rock 'n' Roll High School | The Rules of the Game | Safe | Schizopolis | Son of Frankenstein | The Squid and the Whale | The Super Inframan | Sunset Boulevard | Surviving The Game | The Sweet Hereafter | The Third Man | Titicut Follies | Vampyr | The Vanishing | Videodrome | The Young Girls of Rochefort | Zardoz Now in checklist form!
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 03:30 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 07:40 |
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Great write up, thank you. My only question is how long does it take Sean Bean to die in this movie?
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 16:21 |
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cplagge posted:My only question is how long does it take Sean Bean to die in this movie? He doesn't. This movie is the rare exception to the "Sean Bean always dies" clause
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 16:41 |
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LtKenFrankenstein posted:He doesn't. This movie is the rare exception to the "Sean Bean always dies" clause But he doesn't last the whole movie, either, so I count it. In a movie where a man's honor and skill define his life, and Bean is shown to have neither, I count that as a death.
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 16:48 |
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Great choice, I love Ronin and think it's a drat shame that it's not more well known. Something I always liked about Ronin is that much like it's characters are relics of the cold war adapting to a more violent criminal underground, so the movie sort of bridges the gap between older, more cerebral spy thrillers and the 90s style action thriller. Everyone talks about the car chases, and rightly so as they're pretty incredible, but the movie begins with like a 10 minute sequence where De Niro scopes out a meeting point, checks its exits, plants a gun by the back door, reassess the meeting place, enters, exchanges some cautious dialogue with his contact, almost leaves, then finally decides to take the job and goes back to retrieve his gun. It's a scene that in any other 90s action movie would be a minute long of quick cuts and snappy dialogue, but in Ronin it's all low key and slow paced and yet still completely engrossing.
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 18:02 |
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Ronin is amazing, and your write-up is spot-on. I always found Ronin to be the most believable of all the turn-of-the-century spy movies that seemed to be everywhere around that time. It had the deepest story, with character development as opposed to Bond or MI style action being at the forefront. I'd go as far as to say that it helped me mature as a 'critic' of these types of movies, as I was never much into older spy movies as a younger man. It serves as a bridge between a bygone era and the struggling modern depiction of a spy.
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 21:16 |
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drat, I literally just watched this last night without even knowing it was gonna be the MotM.  loving great movie and it's a shame it's not a bigger part of pop culture.
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| # ? Feb 10, 2013 23:46 |
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I really enjoy this movie, though I feel it is less than the sum of its parts. I think I enjoy almost every individual aspect of the film immensely but something about it just doesn't quite hold together as a whole. De Niro's character is just a little too on top of things at all times, though I absolutely love the instantly comfortable friendship that springs up between Sam and Vincent, and despite Sam being so clever he does get blindsided by Gregor's actions (I really love the scene where Gregor is caught out showing how quick his reflexes are and KNOWS he has been caught out). One of the most enjoyable aspects of the film is in how much misdirection in the film outside of the MacGuffin. You have the great Sean Bean stuff as well, but in particular Gregor becoming the antagonist of the film halfway through is itself another misdirection as he miscalculates his position and is killed. The man who kills him is himself a misdirection, he becomes irrelevant to the film after Gregor's death as we shift back to Sam's goal the entire time - Seamus. Also am I just making it up in my head or did the movie originally have a different ending where Sam and his handler are talking in the car and Sam is asked if he wants to go and see Vincent in his cafe and he decides not to, and the final shot of the film is Vincent alone in the cafe, realizing that nobody is coming and getting up and leaving because he knows that is the way it has to be? I've looked up alternate endings online and only been able to find a version where Dierdre is captured by the IRA as a traitor and driven away as Sam exits the cafe.
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| # ? Feb 11, 2013 06:00 |
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The car chases in this film are on the level of Bullitt and French Connection and I don't think I've seen a movie made since that has topped them.
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| # ? Feb 11, 2013 08:23 |
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Excellent write-up. I've adored this movie ever since I saw it in school in 8th grade. Despite not being aware enough to knowingly appreciate the excellent pacing and subtle character moments I was impressed how engrossing it was. It's a shame it's so underappreciated. I know the movie is most well known for the car chases and while they are excellent, I think the characters take the cake. Sean Bean is very good at being really likeable and when I watched this movie recently I was surprised how well he portrayed such a cocky bastard. In my eyes, Skarsgård can't do wrong and man was he good in this. The final scene between Sam and Vincent is really wonderful, I love that they don't play it up but keep it really small and quiet.
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| # ? Feb 11, 2013 15:49 |
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Minor non-plot question - What was the deal where a person sprays frosting or paint on a glass window? It happens in the middle of another scene, you never see who is spraying and I never understood what that meant. The camera transitions from the crew walking to ... somebody ... spraying over a random window that seemed to be somewhere inside the building. Por que.Oxybeles posted:Ronin is amazing, and your write-up is spot-on. Have you seen Spy Game? You may like it if you haven't.
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| # ? Feb 11, 2013 18:01 |
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Supreme Allah posted:Minor non-plot question - What was the deal where a person sprays frosting or paint on a glass window? It happens in the middle of another scene, you never see who is spraying and I never understood what that meant. The camera transitions from the crew walking to ... somebody ... spraying over a random window that seemed to be somewhere inside the building. Por que. I just rewatched the movie myself and was also confused by this. Sam and Deirdre leave the apartment where everyone is preparing for the raid, then there is this shot of a hand spraypainting a window white, then a shot of the villa, then Sam and Deirdre scoping out the villa. My best guess is that someone is blinding the villa's windows (or maybe the apartment's) to stop people peeking inside. Seconding your recommendation of Spy Game, by the way.
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| # ? Feb 11, 2013 22:53 |
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I remember watching this with a group of friends back in 2000 and everyone was really into it. I think I remember it because it was one of the first DVDs I watched and just a good experience. I've forgotten some of the film now but that scene on the bridge where they're doing an exchange still sticks out as being tense. And yea I don't know why a good car chase has so much appeal. Maybe it's because it's something too dangerous to do in real life. Doing something like this would be really fun but crashing would suck. That's why I'll stick to watching it on youtube.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XihQeZpwqpEJerusalem posted:I've looked up alternate endings online and only been able to find a version where Dierdre is captured by the IRA as a traitor and driven away as Sam exits the cafe. Yea, I remember watching that on the DVD deleted scenes.
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| # ? Feb 12, 2013 05:54 |
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I think the reason that the car chases really pop is due to the choreography, sense of place (everything makes sense where the cars are in your mind) and the actors obviously being in the cars as they're being driven (by stunt drivers in either right hand drive or hanging off the back bumper). The DVD special features has some great bits on that. Frankenheimer was great at filming that kind of thing, check out Grand Prix if you haven't, it has some excellent racing filming. I love they put a 450SEL 6.9 in there too (the big Mercedes-Benz Reno drives while DeNiro shoots a rocket launcher while standing up through the sunroof), amazing cars.
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| # ? Feb 12, 2013 06:05 |
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Supreme Allah posted:Minor non-plot question - What was the deal where a person sprays frosting or paint on a glass window? It happens in the middle of another scene, you never see who is spraying and I never understood what that meant. The camera transitions from the crew walking to ... somebody ... spraying over a random window that seemed to be somewhere inside the building. Por que. It's the same color as the fake case, which was a painted ice skate box. At least that's how I connected it.
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| # ? Feb 12, 2013 23:02 |
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Zwille posted:It's the same color as the fake case, which was a painted ice skate box. At least that's how I connected it.
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| # ? Feb 12, 2013 23:31 |
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This is one of the best Xmas action movies (don't forget Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and Batman Returns too). I find it extra funny because Sam looks almost like my dad and wishes for the same thing my dad always says. You know how we all complain about friends/family that have no patience for cerebral movies? I got my friend to watch this and he loves it, but still complained during that scene near the end when it shows the ice skating routine for a little bit before serving zooming out. Sigh. Speaking of the deleted ending, what do y'all think of it? It'd be interesting if Vincent is saying she wouldn't come back, while at the same time she does (and is caught). Would her character be that dumb, or desperate for Sam? I'm not sure, she is out-played throughout the movie. effectual fucked around with this message at Feb 14, 2013 around 00:46 |
| # ? Feb 14, 2013 00:43 |
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effectual posted:Speaking of the deleted ending, what do y'all think of it? It'd be interesting if Vincent is saying she wouldn't come back, while at the same time she does (and is caught). Would her character be that dumb, or desperate for Sam? I'm not sure, she is out-played throughout the movie.
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| # ? Feb 14, 2013 01:34 |
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Stare-Out posted:I didn't think about that before; one of the things Sam and Vincent wonder about is how Gregor got the paint when he was stuck in the apartment the whole time. I'm sure now that it's foreshadowing for that, although covering the windows from curious eyes would also work. One explains the other. They definitely spray painted the windows to keep out prying eyes, but we're shown this to establish what excuse Gregor had for needing silver spray paint. It's something that initially looks incidental, which fits with how much mundane detail the movie has in the espionage stuff, but it ultimately ends up answering a question that gets raised, even if the characters themselves never know it.
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| # ? Feb 14, 2013 01:45 |
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I'm glad they didn't keep that ending - Deirdre and Sam's relationship was always strained and personally I think the revelation that he was using her and everybody else to get to Sheamus would have broken any desire she had to see him again. I think the scene outside the ice-skating performance is all the catharsis/resolution that is needed for their relationship, and that any more was a step too far.
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| # ? Feb 14, 2013 03:35 |
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effectual posted:Speaking of the deleted ending, what do y'all think of it? It'd be interesting if Vincent is saying she wouldn't come back, while at the same time she does (and is caught). Would her character be that dumb, or desperate for Sam? I'm not sure, she is out-played throughout the movie. It seemed a little too abrupt and out of place when I watched it at the time. I might think differently thirteen years later though.
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| # ? Feb 14, 2013 03:51 |
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Zogo posted:It seemed a little too abrupt and out of place when I watched it at the time. I might think differently thirteen years later though. I prefer the theatrical ending just as I prefer Frankenheimer's dropping the gunshot from Sean Bean's payoff scene. Ronin consistently denies us (and its characters) closure, and tying up loose ends like that seems out of place. e: I usually describe Ronin as a 70s movie that was lost until the 90s. So many movies defined themselves in reaction to Taratino in the mid-late 90s that Ronin, so out of place when it came out, has aged much better than many of its contemporaries. Julio Cesar Fatass fucked around with this message at Feb 14, 2013 around 17:09 |
| # ? Feb 14, 2013 17:06 |
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Julio Cesar Fatass posted:I prefer the theatrical ending just as I prefer Frankenheimer's dropping the gunshot from Sean Bean's payoff scene. Ronin consistently denies us (and its characters) closure, and tying up loose ends like that seems out of place. What are some good 70's movies in the style of Ronin then?
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| # ? Feb 14, 2013 19:44 |
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Ho Chi Mint posted:What are some good 70's movies in the style of Ronin then? The Warriors has already been namechecked. Three Days of the Condor is a similarly grim spy hunter story. Bullit (not from the 70s I know) has both the car chases and the moral ambiguity, as does The French Connection. Across 110th Street is at least as much about movement in the city as it is about a heist. I'd say of the above it's 110th Street and Warriors that share most deeply Ronin's fascination with movement and transportation (cars, train stations, ice skates, boats - the only thing Ronin is missing is an airport but HEAT had already done the perfect airport scene so I don't mind). e: I love all the different ways Ronin addresses the question of authenticity. We're constantly reminded of the difference between representation and reality: The fake case; "the map... the map is not the territory"; all the various ways we watch Natacha Kirilova's ice dance (monitor, camera, rifle scope); everyone's lies about who they are and where they come from. Everything supports the central themes. It's a very elegant movie. Julio Cesar Fatass fucked around with this message at Feb 14, 2013 around 20:58 |
| # ? Feb 14, 2013 20:49 |
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Does anybody else HATE Sam saying,"I'm going to pass out now?" at the end of the surgery scene? It's such a great scene up to that point, when De Niro playing Sam as in pain and struggling to guide them through the process and then the delivery on that line just feels so... I don't know, not breaking the 4th wall but like something from a different type of movie entirely? It just stands out to me every time and never fails to irritate me.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 02:56 |
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Jerusalem posted:Does anybody else HATE Sam saying,"I'm going to pass out now?" at the end of the surgery scene? It's such a great scene up to that point, when De Niro playing Sam as in pain and struggling to guide them through the process and then the delivery on that line just feels so... I don't know, not breaking the 4th wall but like something from a different type of movie entirely? It just stands out to me every time and never fails to irritate me. That is no poo poo one of the high points of the movie for me. Every single time I saw Ronin with my old man (so like five, six times a year) he would tell me about having his shoulder sewn back together in the Cambodian jungle and how he could feel himself passing out any time he didn't totally focus on staying conscious. It's very much in line with Sam's character: He's been to this rodeo before and is totally businesslike about everything, including letting himself pass out from pain and bloodloss because he doesn't need to be awake anymore.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 03:31 |
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After I wrote the OP, the replies in this thread made me come to a realization about the film: patience serves as the currency of the world of Ronin. Patience, as a value, more than anything else in the film, connects this post-Cold War world of spies with the 47 Ronin of feudal Japan. Just like the 47 ronin waited years to plot their revenge, Sam, Gregor, Seamus, and to a lesser extent Mikhi emerge as the dominant players of the last act of the film; all four of them had designs on this whole operation before the film even started. Compare that to Larry, who clearly doesn't have a plan or really care about anything but driving for easy money or Spence, whom we quickly learn has no loving clue whatsoever.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 03:46 |
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Julio Cesar Fatass posted:That is no poo poo one of the high points of the movie for me. Every single time I saw Ronin with my old man (so like five, six times a year) he would tell me about having his shoulder sewn back together in the Cambodian jungle and how he could feel himself passing out any time he didn't totally focus on staying conscious. That's a take I really hadn't considered (to be fair I haven't had my shoulder stitched together in Cambodia!) and the line makes a lot more sense in that context.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 03:54 |
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I was thinking about the movie today and one thing I liked was when Vincent gets asked "Where do I know you from?" and replies with the smile "Vienna" and the other dude is "Of course!".. Shows there is a wider world with each character has an interesting and potentially intertwined backstory. The only line I didn't like was the "he sprayed the bullet with teflon" or some such nonsense. For a movie that gives the impression of being technically correct it kind of sticks out. The whole "teflon = armour piercing" thing came from the development of harder bullets for handguns that would penetrate hard surfaces (glass plate, doors) better. The teflon coating was to reduce the wear on the barrel and had no intended positive effect on the actual ability to penetrate body armour. Cop Killers, Riggssssssssss!!!
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 05:09 |
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Fun fact: Ron Jeremy, of all people, had a cameo as a fishmonger that was cut because people realized it was Ron Jeremy.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 22:41 |
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Fantastic write up! Being fairly new to the SA forum I have been slow to comment on anything but I can't resist. This movie is one of my favorites. The car chase scene in this movie is top notch and the elegance in which these characters are portrayed is phenomenal. Let alone the fact it has some truly amazing talent of our generation. Plus one of my favorite character ever, Jean-Pierre! I have to say Cinema Discusso is quickly becoming my favorite place to lurk and I look forward to March for the Movie of the Month.
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| # ? Feb 18, 2013 21:48 |
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Ronin is one of the most rewatchable movies of all time and pretty much the perfect heist/spy/car movie apart from the horrible cg tyre smoke in that one scene.  I can't think of any reason why that had to be there. Even if they planned to shoot it with smoke and it didn't work out for whatever technical reason I still would have vastly preferred no smoke at all to what we got in the end.
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| # ? Feb 19, 2013 09:38 |
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Cantide posted:Ronin is one of the most rewatchable movies of all time and pretty much the perfect heist/spy/car movie apart from the horrible cg tyre smoke in that one scene. If you watch the commentary, Frankenheimer falls all over himself to apologize for the smoke there. I can forgive him for wanting to quote Bullitt at any cost; I'd have done it too.
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| # ? Feb 19, 2013 15:22 |
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I like to think it is because they didn't want to abuse that beautiful 450SEL 6.9 too badly  I'm sure that's not the reason, but still. vvvv probably the reason. I'd also imagine the gearing on the merc is such that it doesn't get the wheelspin from stop - euro cars are geared more towards being able to pass at autobahn speeds. priznat fucked around with this message at Feb 19, 2013 around 18:32 |
| # ? Feb 19, 2013 16:00 |
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IIRC, it was because the rear end in the Merc was built too well. The reason Bullitt has all that lovely smoke and axle hop is the open differential in the Mustang, right?
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| # ? Feb 19, 2013 16:14 |
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priznat posted:I think the reason that the car chases really pop is due to the choreography, sense of place (everything makes sense where the cars are in your mind) and the actors obviously being in the cars as they're being driven (by stunt drivers in either right hand drive or hanging off the back bumper). The DVD special features has some great bits on that. Another thing that made the car chases great was the sound design and oddly enough, the lack of soundtrack. For me, it reminded me a lot of the speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi; just the noises of the engines roaring and tires squealing pulled you into the moment. I loved how this movie showed Sam executing actual spy tradecraft from scoping out the cafe in the beginning, dismantling Spence's ambush plans ("I ambushed you with a cup of coffee!") to surveilling the package & getting photos at the villa. There's something about cool professionalism that I find appealing. I never did find out what color the boat house in Hereford is though. 
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 02:13 |
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Android Bicyclist posted:I never did find out what color the boat house in Hereford is though. Julio Cesar Fatass, Sr. posted:There is no boathouse at Hereford Six months since he passed away. Thanks for making this movie of the month, CloseFriend. It's good to remember.
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| # ? Feb 20, 2013 02:31 |
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It feels weird commenting only on the make-out scene like I'm posting at the MrSkin forums, but it's one that's always stood out to me among romance or sex scenes in movies. (Also I'm not sure what else to comment on yet apart from nthing everybody's praise). Sam and Dierdre are both old enough and mature enough that there's no awkwardness or fumbling to their making out, it's just something that happens because well, one of them wanted to! Most movies would play that type of behaviour off as funny or strange with one of the characters bluntly asking "Well, wanna make out?" as if it's shocking that people don't always have to go through the stereotypical song and dance just for some kissing. And I've always gotten a kick out of the sense that Dierdre starts it largely out of boredom.
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| # ? Feb 21, 2013 22:17 |
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CloseFriend posted:Ronin (1998) One of the things I love the most about the car chase: the drivers are constantly honking and flashing their lights to get people out of their way. It's just one of those things you never, ever see in a movie car chase. But if you think about it, if you DIDN'T do those things, your car chase would end quickly with you getting cut off or side swiped by a driver who isn't really paying attention. I know "tactical realism!" and all that, but I found it a neat touch in a movie full of neat touches like that.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 02:04 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 07:40 |
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It's crazy... I never really check this forum and I was thinking about re-watching Ronin earlier today. It combines good tradecraft, decently relistic action, and amazing car chases. I've problably seen it about 20 times but I'm gonna head back in starting now 
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| # ? Feb 23, 2013 02:34 |
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