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Ah, Ronin. An espionage thriller that has a simple premise (much like Miami Vice did) but suffers from some crazy movie nonsense and doesn’t actually have anything to do with Ronins.

Ronin is a decade old espionage thriller that had a pretty solid cast of actors (Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Jonathan Pryce, Sean Bean, Natascha McElhone and Stellan Skarsgard). The film is about a group of people (from America, Ireland, France, Russia, etc.) that are brought together to steal a case that is going to be given to the “evil” Russians. Sounds simple, correct? Unfortunately, it isn’t because shit goes wrong… crew members get kicked out, die or turn on each other, leaving us a movie that we have to sit through with a bunch of twists and turns and unexplained subplots that are more random than my thoughts on a piece of paper.

Yeah, there is a pretty solid cast of actors, some chemistry (albeit only between Jean Reno and Robert De Niro), some decent direction from John Frankenheimer and two pretty solid car chase sequences, but as for as looking at this film from a “good movie stand point”, that’s about all this movie has. Other than those few “good movie” elements, the film is just straight up bad… but, a good bad. For instance, this movie has scenes with Bobby D where he either repeats himself over and over again (which docks the film a point for annoying the fuck out of me) or has him saying some of the most retarded shit ever. In those cases it feels like he got the script and realized that his character, Sam, had no lines, asked what the hell he was supposed to do and got the reply of, “well, you’re Bobby D, make something up. We trust you.” And, well, that’s exactly what it sounds like he did… man, got paid to make shit up off the top of his head (or at least that’s what I believe).

Now, where do we begin with the bad? Well, I’ve already mentioned that in some instances Bobby D just repeats some of his dialogue over and over again to the point of annoyance. From there, I guess I could complain about the story being poorly written. The story suffers from predictable twists and unexplained subplots (i.e. the, I believe, little love story that was going on between Bobby D and McElhone) that literally have no relevance to the film. But this doesn’t compare to the biggest qualm I have with this flick.

The biggest problem that I have with the film is that the characters are… well, for lack of a better word, retarded. And I say that because there are times in the film when the characters are sitting around trying to figure shit out, then one of them has a brilliant plan and then they follow that up with some stupid shit. There is literally one scene where Bobby D and Jean Reno are playing detective, in what appears to be a crowed café, and try to figure out how the guy they are looking for switched the cases. Then out of nowhere, Bobby D sees two small little kiddies holding the same type of case and decides that the cases must be common and tries to figure out what they are for (this leads to Jean Reno asking the father of the children what type of case this is, to which he replies “it’s for ice skates”). This scene is then followed by one where the two are trying to find out why the Russians would want a case like this and where they could be in all of France… the answer? Well, that comes from a FUCKING billboard with big bold letters advertising a Russian figure skater performing at a show in France that is less then twenty feet away. Now, explain to me how they can spot little kids in a crowd café but they can’t see a big fucking sign… hmm?
With all that said, Ronin is a shitty movie, but a shitty good. It suffers from its problems but has its moments that will keep you entertained (either action wise or just through sheer stupidity).

Final Synopsis: It’s a shitty good movie, but isn’t one to go out of your way for. Those types of movies are classics like Re-Animator, Dead Alive and Ice Cream Man. You can easily skip this movie, but if you want to hear Bobby D saying retarded stuff, only give it a rent.

Points Lost: -1 for the annoying repeating dialogue, -1 for being poorly written, -1 for predictable twists, -1 for unexplained sub plots, -1 for the characters just being insanely stupid folk.

Lesson Learned: Russians will kill anyone for case that looks like it’s one that holds ice skates.

Burning Question: What was actually in the case?

Ronin:
6/10

Tags: 1998, action, drama, espionage, ice skate case, Jean Reno, John Frankenheimer, Jonathan Pryce, latest movie review, Natascha McElhone, recent, Robert De Niro, Sean Bean, Stellan Skarsgard, thriller, twist