IslandGuru Who payed the critics

AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

blanche-2 From 1998, Ronin is directed by John Frankenheimer and stars Robert DeNiro, Jean Reno, Jonathan Pryce, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgård, and Sean Bean.The title is taken from the Japanese; it describes Samurai without a master. These Ronin are specialists and mercenaries, from Special Forces or Intelligence units hired by Dierdre (McElhone) on behalf of her boss Seamus (Price). Their job is to obtain a suitcase from someone who is about to sell it to the Russians. It seems obvious that Dierdre is an IRA member. The men are nearly successful, but one of their own switches the real suitcase for a useless one and steals it for himself, intending to sell it to the Russians. The chase is on.Wonderful action movie with fantastic performances all around, but especially from DeNiro and Reno. The scenery from all over France and the camera angles used are wonderful. One of the towns filmed in is shown in such detail, you feel like you're there. The car chases are killers, done in Alpes-Maritime.For figure skating lovers, there are skating sequences by Katarina Witt, who won won two Olympic Gold Medals for East Germany, first in the 1984 and 1988, and was world champion 1984-88. This was filmed ten years later, and she was still in phenomenal shape. Highly recommended.

Jon Corelis This combination gangster/espionage/heist-caper film, very tautly directed by John Frankenheimer (best known for The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, and French Connection II,) and co-scripted by David Mamet (under a pseudonym because of contract disputes,) features Robert De Niro as a freelance commando with a mysterious background who is part of a team hired by Irish terrorists to hijack a container of something very valuable being delivered to a Russian mafia outfit.The possibilities arising from this array for violence and betrayal are fully exploited in the quite convoluted but essentially clear plot. The film features some great photography of Paris and southern France, and a series of cinematic set pieces, including not one but two car chases which are so good that they are exciting even if you've gotten tired of movie car chases, an extended urban shoot out, ditto, and some beautiful figure skating, something you don't expect to see in an action movie. Notable among the cast is Sean Bean in an atypical non-heroic role. Definitely an above average action film which anyone who likes that genre will want to see. Advisories: lots of violence though not excessively gory by current standards, some language. I saw this on the Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Collector's Edition standard DVD, which was of very good quality; I believe there is also a Blu-Ray edition available.

KissEnglishPasto ...........................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA...and ORLANDO, FL "An Anti-Action, anti-formula movie" was my initial choice for a tag line for this review...but I wanted something more enticing! If you've gotten this far, you're probably looking for a little clarification. Here it is: It is indeed rare to encounter a truly original element in any movie. Much rarer still, is to have such originality overlooked completely by the viewing public. When this occurs, it really upsets me. RONIN offers us just such an unheralded moment of cinematic history! Initially curious to see what percent of reviewers had commented on the totally unique and unprecedented selection of a female driver, in what is, undoubtedly,the most REALISTIC cinema chase sequence of the past 20 years, systematically, I began scouring the reviews. What I discovered has not ceased to amaze me! I would like to share the results with you, and let you measure your own reaction.Out of the 212 reviews that were posted at the time, I carefully went over 70 of them! Only ONE reviewer used a name clearly belonging to woman. Unfortunately, she restricted herself to only 15 or 20 words, so she really didn't end up saying much of anything! (Of course, there were perhaps 7 or 8 anonymous reviews.) Of the 70 reviews, 50, or more, made reference to the chase scene. (Between 80 and 90 percent of those comments were basically positive.) Although Robert De Niro and Jean Reno were the only two actors in the film who definitely had more on-screen time than Natascha McElhone, (Dierdre, the chase car driver from HELL!) around 20 reviewers commented on other actors, whose on-screen time wasn't half that of hers. Only 6 or 7 chose to mention her at all! Probably, more reviewers sited Katarina Witt's 3 or 4 minute cameo spot! (Of course, she was much more scantily clad than Ms. McElhone!) Finally, out of 50, or so, who did talk about the chase scenes, ONLY ONE linked McElhone to them directly! Amazingly, paraphrasing here the reviewer's words, "The car chase scenes are very authentic. (Except that Natascha McElhone looks like she has never driven fast in her life!)" Well, all I can say is, after having screened the scene at least a dozen times, it seems to me that this reviewer was watching a different RONIN! Some might argue that THELMA & LOUISE had car chases. These were all together different, because the movie revolved entirely around its title characters. In RONIN, nobody seems to make a big deal out of the fact, and it is actually Dierdre's boss who pointedly barks at her, "YOU DRIVE!" Is there a lesson to be learned here? Apparently, all this tends to bear out the title of this review..."Clothed women in Action films are invisible to male viewers!"Sad, because RONIN has a lot more to offer than just the chase scenes. It pays yet another subtle tribute to the prowess of women, when an ex-East German operative (Stellan Skarsgaerd) says, "I've hired the very best sniper assassin...SHE never misses!" More than anything else, RONIN provides an utterly believable inside- track on the post-Cold War mercenary and the shadowy, detached world he inhabits, reminiscent of the insider's glimpse of real-world spies offered in the classic, The SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. If it's John Woo style Action films that make your day...You'll probably find RONIN much too realistic, too cerebral, too noir and too explosion-less for your tastes! On the other hand, if you like your Action movies well grounded in reality, RONIN is a near classic, anti-action, anti-formula film, with a most refreshing European aftertaste, that you will find quite engrossing and enjoyable! 9 STARS.....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA!

willhaskew A team of mercenaries: Sam (Robert De Niro), former ex-CIA officer; Vincent (Jean Reno), former French intelligence agent; Gregor (Stellan Skarsgård), a KGB-trained East German agent and electronics and surveillance expert; Larry (Skip Sudduth); a mechanic and expert wheelman; and Deirdre (Natascha McElhone), an IRA operative working in Paris, plan an attack on an armed convoy to steal a steel briefcase. Their hijacking is successful, but Gregor takes the case and Deirdre is intercepted by her former IRA handler, Seamus (Jonathan Pryce). Sam and Vincent finds themselves left together and soon make an effective duo. They chase the briefcase through Paris, while competing against Deirdre, Seamus and Gregor's Russian mob buyers for ownership of the case. It also features some of the most elaborate car chase work ever filmed, with pursuits all over the streets and traffic tunnels of Paris. This was made with a number of high performance luxury cars from Peugeot, Audi, Mercedes, and BMW. The car chases were indicative of filmmaker John Frankenheimer, who's the director car racing thriller Grand Prix.