150 Word Review: 'Ronin' (1998)
Eighty automobiles were harmed -- some totaled -- during the making of this film
John Frankenheimer can direct the hell out of a high-speed car chase. Fact. Ronin's whiplash-inducing action scenes are intoxicating. The screeching wheels, the roaring motors, the hairpin turns—harrowing, and nary a CGI shot.
Robert DeNiro is cunning as a former U.S. spy who joins a ragtag team of mercenaries to hunt a mysterious briefcase that every government wants. It was one of his best 90s performances. He's joined by a murderer’s row of hardboiled character actors -- including the great Jean Reno -- playing unemployed assassins exchanging barbed one-liners, courtesy of a snappy screenplay by J.D. Zeik and Richard Weiscz, macho playwright David Mamet' nom de plume.
Ronin is about secret agents smushed between two seismic historical events: the Cold War and the War on Terror. They're selling their deadly skills for the love of money, not country. It makes for a wonderfully cynical espionage thriller about dogs without leashes.
***
ALLEGED FUN FACT: The movie's title, Ronin, refers to masterless samurai. These medieval free agents were a favorite of famed director Akira Kurosawa. The ronin are title-dropped during a scene where a retired French spymaster Frenchplains Japanese history. Mamet probably wrote that.