Review: RONIN

‘RONIN’ IS JAPANESE FOR “THIS SUCKS”

(reviewed on ppv Tuesday, April 20th, colorado carnage, 1999)

    “Ronin” hit theaters with a thud last September. The public held a lukewarm reaction to the film, so in turn it didn’t make a lot of money. While it wasn’t earning it’s potential at the box office the critics mostly loved it. Why? Well, for starters, it plays out like a smart action picture, along the lines of the supposed classic 70’s flicks a la “The French Connection”.
    For my money, “Ronin” is about as smart as Howie Long’s classic fireman epic, “Firestorm”. “Ronin” disguises itself as an intriguing, suspensful action picture. To prove this point even further the setting is overseas and a few snippets of dialogue are in subtitles. The studio purposefully made the picture to be a smart caper. Now tell me this? How smart of a climax can you get? A famous German ice skater is performing for a packed audience while a gunman has his sights on her. I thought I had inadvertantly changed the channel to USA where Van Damme’s “Sudden Death” was on.
    Robert Deniro plays…Robert Deniro. I mean Sam, a tough-as-nails bullshitter who carries with him a very mysterious past (which we never learn about so it’s about as mysterious as you want it to be). Sam and a crew of semi-mercenaries have been hired by the chick from “The Truman Show” (the one who moved to Fiji) who boasts a ridiculous Irish accent. This crew assemble in France and are paid to complete a job. The job? To get a briefcase. What’s in the briefcase? Go rent “Pulp Fiction”.
    While “Ronin” does feature a few good action sequences, including the mother of all car chases, there just isn’t enough meat in the plot. All of the characters are lifeless, especially Deniro who has played himself in every movie he’s every made (even when he was a fat ass in “Raging Bull” he was playing himself). If you’ve seen the movie “Heat” than there’s really no reason to see “Ronin”. Take out Val Kilmer and add Jean Reno, take out L.A. and add Paris, take out an awesome shootout and add an awesome car chase and you’ve got “Ronin”.
    The problem with “Ronin” is that it’s trying way too hard to be something it isn’t. It’s not a suspensful masterpiece. Oh wow, we don’t know what’s in the briefcase, ****-star masterpiece! Fuck that shit, the climax of this film is about on par with any given Steven Segal film. The script is loose at best, only creating an uneven plot so they can have more car chases. And there’s a scene where an older man is telling Deniro, I mean Sam, about Ronin, the masterless samurai. He says that all of the Ronin committed suicide by disembolwing themselves with their swords instead of some sort of bad circumstance that awaited them. I proclaimed that if the ending had Deniro disemboweling himself instead of getting caught I would give the film 4 stars. **