Ronin - Review

A classy Euro-Japanese heist
March 19, 2020

The only reason I watched Ronin was to settle a long-smoldering beef I had with a professor at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He had besmirched the honor of my own Notre Dame professor---who mentored me in live sports commentary---by arguing that, on the whole, commentary detracts from sports broadcasts. He’d used Katarina Witt’s skating scene in Ronin to illustrate his point. Hence my interest.

Now I’ve graduated and bear no allegiance to any school. I’m a rogue film critic out for blood, laying waste to thriller and comedy alike until I have avenged my professor, at which time honor compels me to fall on my sword.

That is the Ronin mythology and plot in a nutshell. The film is a creative amalgamation of seemingly dissonant themes that end up surprisingly combining well. Robert De Niro’s heist-mates are the ronin, a Japanese term for the samurai who through treachery have lost their lords.

The events, though, take place in modern-day France. The narrow cobblestone streets, hilly city centers, pedestrian-only squares, and lakefront al-fresco cafes give Ronin a distinct European feel. Jonathan Pryce and Natascha McElhone worked hard on their Northern Irish accents, and while those are Euro they lend a different feel than the French streets do---more of a Crying Game IRA grittiness. It is a surprising place to find ice skating highlighted---Witt’s grace is offset by her stark, East German athleticism and her oligarch boyfriend’s ruthlessness.

And then there’s Elia Cmiral’s gorgeous score, his first major one, which hints back to that Japanese mythology with its opening strains. How I long for the days of classical, melodic themes like this. But it isn’t fully Japanese. Its instrumentation originates technically from the Caucasus.

It falls to you to determine whether the score’s nature---excellent but approximated or appropriated---is indicative of the larger verdict for John Frankenheimer’s framing devices. As for me, I found it enhances the depth of what would otherwise be a regular heist movie with witty, realistically brusque dialogue, fine use of its European settings, and excellent chases.

These ought to be compared favorably to the usual pantheon, including The French Connection (which my pantheon excludes rather dismissively). The mazes of French alleys and especially the extended drive headlong into highway traffic truly impressed me. We can overlook the Audi being outclassed, as Jeremy Clarkson has pointed out, by a Citroen. Yet car chases can only amount to so much. As one tight-fisted CEO once told me, there is a limit to the earning power that an elevator attendant can command even if he's the world's best elevator attendant. The same can be said of Citroens. The real joy in Ronin lies in visual grace, in interactive characters, and in seeing Frankenheimer piece together so many disparate themes into a cohesive, united whole.

Trois sur quatre Citroens