Ronin (film)

''Ronin'' is a 1998 American action thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer and written by John David Zeik and David Mamet, under the pseudonym Richard Weisz. It stars Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Bean, and Jonathan Pryce. The film is about a team of former special operatives hired to steal a mysterious, heavily guarded briefcase while navigating a maze of shifting loyalties. The film was praised for its realistic car chases in Nice and Paris.

Frankenheimer signed to direct Zeik's screenplay, which Mamet rewrote to expand De Niro's role and develop plot details, in 1997. The film was photographed by Robert Fraisse in his native France from November 3, 1997, to March 3, 1998. Professional racing car drivers coordinated and performed the vehicle stunts, and Elia Cmiral scored the film, his first for a major studio.

''Ronin'' premiered at the 1998 Venice Film Festival before its general release on September 25. Critics were generally positive about the film's action, casting, and technical aspects, while the plot attracted criticism. The film performed moderately well at the box office, grossing $70.7 million on a budget of $55 million. ''Ronin'', Frankenheimer's last well-received feature film, was considered to be a return to form for the director. Film critic and historian Stephen Prince called the film Frankenheimer's "end-of-career masterpiece". The car chases, which were favorably compared with those in ''Bullitt'' and '' The French Connection'',
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were included on several media outlets' lists as among the best depicted on film.

Plot

At a bistro in Montmartre, IRA operative Deirdre meets with two Americans, Sam and Larry, and a Frenchman, Vincent. She takes them to a warehouse where the Englishman Spence and the German Gregor are waiting. Conversations between the men show that they are all ex-government agents or ex-military-turned-mercenary. Deirdre briefs them on their mission: to attack a heavily armed convoy and steal a large, metallic briefcase, which functions as the film's MacGuffin. Its contents are never revealed. The team's first task before the main mission is to acquire weapons; this turns into a setup. Although the team survives and they get the weapons, Spence is exposed as a fraud by Sam. He is dismissed by Deirdre and the others continue the mission. As the team prepares, Deirdre meets with her handler, Seamus O'Rourke, who tells her that the Russian mafia is bidding for the case and that the team must intervene before they get it. During a stakeout, Sam and Deirdre act on their mutual attraction.

Deirdre's team successfully ambushes the convoy at La Turbie and pursues the survivors to Nice. During the gunfight, Gregor steals the case and disappears. He negotiates selling it to the Russians, but his contact attempts to betray him. Gregor kills the contact, then has Mikhi — the Russian Mafioso in charge of the deal — agree to another meeting. The team tracks Gregor through one of Sam's old CIA contacts and corners him in the Arles Amphitheatre during his meeting with two of Mikhi's men. Sam chases Gregor; Gregor flees but is caught by Seamus. Deirdre and Vincent confront the two Russian thugs, causing a shootout. Sam arrives to help, killing one, but catches a ricochet from the other when Vincent knocks away the thug's gun in order to kill him. Seamus kills Larry and escapes with a reluctant Deirdre and the captured Gregor. Vincent takes Sam to a villa owned by his friend, Jean-Pierre. After removing the bullet and letting Sam recuperate, Vincent asks Jean-Pierre to help them find Gregor and the Irish operatives.

In Paris, Gregor is persuaded through violent interrogation to give the case back to Seamus and Deirdre. After retrieving it from a post office, they are pursued by Sam and Vincent in a high-speed chase. Vincent shoots out their tire, sending their car off an unfinished overpass. Gregor escapes with the case while road workers rescue Deirdre and Seamus from the burning vehicle. Unsure where to go next, Sam and Vincent decide to track down the Russians; one of Jean-Pierre's contacts tells them they are involved with figure-skater (and Mikhi's girlfriend) Natacha Kirilova, who is appearing at Le Zénith.

During Natacha's performance, Mikhi meets with Gregor, who says a sniper in the arena will shoot Natacha if Mikhi betrays him. Mikhi surprises Gregor by letting Natacha be killed before killing Gregor and taking the case. Amid the ensuing chaos from Natacha's shooting, Sam and Vincent leave the arena just in time to see Seamus kill Mikhi and steal the case. Sam and Vincent split up; Vincent pursues Seamus, but is wounded in a gunfight. Sam finds Deirdre waiting in a getaway car; he convinces her to leave after explaining that he is still an active government agent working undercover to get Seamus, not the case. As she drives away, Seamus is forced to return to the arena as Sam gives chase. Seamus ambushes Sam, but is shot dead by Vincent before Seamus can kill Sam.

Sam and Vincent have coffee in the bistro where they first met. A radio broadcast announces that a peace agreement between Sinn Féin and the British government has been reached, partially as a result of Seamus's death. Sam keeps glancing at the door as patrons enter, but Vincent convinces Sam that Deirdre will not be coming back. They shake hands and part ways; Sam drives off with his CIA contact as Vincent pays the bill and leaves.

Cast

Production

In July 1997, ''Variety'' reported that Frankenheimer had signed to direct ''Ronin'', making it his fifth picture for United Artists. Frankenheimer told the magazine he chose the project because it had a "very good script" and was "the kind of movie I'd love to go see ... What I like is, it's a character-driven action picture, and I have done those before, with '' Black Sunday'' and ''French Connection II''. It's not one of these CGI pictures, it's a film about people. It's not bigger than life, which I don't relate to that much." He also saw it as an opportunity to apply his broad knowledge and understanding of France, especially Paris, in which he resided for many years. He added, "I would not have been able to do the film nearly as well anywhere else". His films '' The Train'' (1964), '' Grand Prix'' (1966), ''Impossible Object'' (1973), and ''French Connection II'' (1975) were shot in France.

Many of ''Ronin''s principal crew members had worked with Frankenheimer on television films; editor Tony Gibbs on ''George Wallace'', set designer Michael Z. Hanan on ''George Wallace'' and '' The Burning Season'' (1994), and costume designer May Routh on '' Andersonville'' (1996). Frankenheimer chose French cinematographer Robert Fraisse to help him achieve the look and style he wanted for the film. Fraisse impressed Frankenheimer with his work on the police thriller ''Citizen X'' (1995), which persuaded the director Fraisse could handle the more-than-2,000 setups he planned for ''Ronin''. Frank Mancuso Jr. served as the film's producer.

According to Frankenheimer, French authorities helped him circumvent a strict Paris ordinance that prohibited film productions from firing guns in the city. This was enacted because many civilians had been complaining about the gunfire noise produced by film shoots. Additional factors influenced the decision; officials' desire for an American action film like ''Ronin'', few of which had been filmed there since the law was passed, to be filmed in Paris and the desire to boost France's reputation as a filming location.

Screenplay

Writer John David Zeik, a newcomer to film, conceived the idea for ''Ronin'' after reading James Clavell's novel ''Shōgun'' at the age of 15. It gave him background information on ''rōnin'' (masterless samurai), which he incorporated into a screenplay years later. On choosing France as the story's key location, Zeik said: "Many years later in Nice, the location of one of the key set pieces of the story, I stared into the sun and saw the silhouettes of five heavily armed Gendarmes crossing the Promenade des Anglais. That image made me realize that I wanted to set the film in France."

Accounts differ as to the screenplay's authorship. According to Zeik's attorney, Playwright David Mamet was brought in shortly before production to expand De Niro's role and add a female love interest. Although Mamet rewrote several scenes, his contributions were minor according to Zeik's account. Frankenheimer said Mamet's contributions were more significant: "The credits should read: 'Story by J.D. Zeik, screenplay by David Mamet'. We didn't shoot a line of Zeik's script." Frankenheimer later retracted this in a September 1998 open letter published in ''Variety'', writing that "J.D. Zeik is unequivocally entitled to the first position screenwriting credit as well as the sole story credit he was awarded by the WGA ... edeserves recognition for his significant contribution to this film, and I am proud to have worked with him". When he learned he would have to share credit with Zeik, Mamet insisted on being credited with the pseudonym Richard Weisz because he had earlier decided to attach his name only to projects for which he was the sole writer.

Filming and cinematography

''Ronin'' was produced on a budget of $55 million. Principal photography lasted 78 days, beginning on November 3, 1997, in an abandoned workshop at Aubervilliers. Scenes at Porte des Lilas and the historic Arles Amphitheatre were filmed that November; the crew then filmed at the Hotel Majestic in Cannes, La Turbie, and Villefranche. Production was suspended for Christmas on December 19 and resumed on January 5, 1998, at Épinay, where the crew built two interior sets on sound stages; one for the bistro in Montmartre and another for the rural farmhouse, both of which also have exterior location shots. The climactic scene with a panicked crowd at Le Zénith required about 2,000 extras, who were supervised by French casting director Margot Capelier. Filming concluded at La Défense on March 3, 1998.

Because there were no second unit director and camera operator to film the action scenes, Frankenheimer and cinematographer Robert Fraisse supervised them for an additional 30 days after the main unit finished filming. The first major car-chase scene was shot in La Turbie and Nice; the rest were filmed in areas of Paris including La Défense and the Pont du Garigliano. Scenes set in a road tunnel were filmed at night because it was impossible to block tunnel traffic during the day. The freeway chase, in which the actors dodge oncoming vehicles, was filmed in four hours on a closed road.

Frankenheimer's affinity for deep depth of field led him to shoot the film entirely with wide-angle lenses ranging in focal length from 18 to 35 mm using the Super 35 format, both of which allow more of the scene to be included in each shot. The director also avoided bright primary colors to preserve a first-generation-of-film quality. He advised the actors and extras not to wear bright colors and had the film processed with Deluxe's Color Contrast Enhancement (CCE), "a silver-retention method of processing film that deepens blacks, reduces color, and heightens the visible appearance of film grain". Fraisse said he used a variety of cameras, including Panaflexes for dialogue scenes and Arriflex 435s and 35-IIIs for the car chases, to facilitate Frankenheimer's demands. Steadicam, a camera stabilizer used for half of the shoot, was operated by the director's longtime collaborator David Crone. According to Frankenheimer, 2,200 shots were filmed.

Stunts

Frankenheimer avoided using special effects in the car-chase scenes, previsualizing them with storyboards and used the same camera mounts as those used on ''Grand Prix''. The actors were placed inside the cars while being driven at up to , by Formula One driver Jean-Pierre Jarier, and high-performance drivers Jean-Claude Lagniez and Michel Neugarten. The actors had enrolled at a high-performance driving school before production began. According to Lagniez, the car-stunt coordinator, it was a priority not to cheat the speed by adjusting the frame rate; he said, "When you do, it affects the lighting. It is different at 20 frames than at 24 frames." However, Fraisse said: "Sometimes, but not very often, we did shoot at 22 frames per second, or 21." Point-of-view shots from cameras mounted below the cars' front fender were used to deliver a heightened sense of speed.

For the final chase scene, which used 300 stunt drivers, the production team bought four BMW 535is and five Peugeot 406s; one of each was cut in half and towed by a Mercedes-Benz 500 E while the actors were inside them. Right-hand drive versions of the cars were also purchased; a dummy steering wheel was installed on the left side while the stunt drivers drove the speeding vehicles. The final chase had very little music because Frankenheimer thought music and sound effects do not blend well. Sound engineer Mike Le Mare recorded all of the film's cars on a racetrack, mixing them later in post-production.

Frankenheimer refused to film the gunfights in slow motion, believing onscreen violence should be depicted in real time. Mick Gould, the film's technical advisor and a former instructor in the advanced training wings of the Special Air Service, trained the cast in weapons-handling and guerilla military tactics. The physical stunts were coordinated by Joe Dunne.

Alternative endings

Frankenheimer filmed two additional versions of the film's ending. In the first, Deirdre (McElhone) waits on the stairs next to the bistro and considers joining Sam (De Niro) and Vincent (Reno). Deciding against it, she walks up the stairs. As she gets into her car, IRA men drag her into a van and call her a traitor; it is implied that she is later killed. Sam and Vincent, unaware of Deidre's abduction, finish their conversation and depart. Although Frankenheimer said the test audience "hated" the ending because they did not want to see Deirdre die, he thought it "really worked". In the second ending, Deirdre walks to her car after Sam and Vincent leave the bistro; this ending was also rejected because it verged on being "too Hollywood", hinting at a sequel. Frankenheimer yielded to the test audience's response with a compromise ending; he said, "with the tremendous investment MGM/UA had in this movie, you have to kind of listen to the audience".

Music

Jerry Goldsmith was originally commissioned to compose the score for ''Ronin'' but left the project. MGM executive vice-president for music Michael Sandoval assembled an A-list to replace Goldsmith. From Sandoval's three choices, Frankenheimer hired Czech composer Elia Cmíral, who said he "was far away from being even a 'B' composer at that time". Cmíral attended a private screening of the film's final version and considered its main theme, which at Frankenheimer's behest would incorporate qualities of "sadness, loneliness, and heroism". To achieve this, Cmíral performed with the duduk, an ancient, double-reed woodwind flute that originated in Armenia. Cmíral sent a demonstration to Frankenheimer, who "loved" it, and was signed as the film's composer. Cmíral's piece "Ronin Theme" was used for the opening scenes.

Cmíral's score for ''Ronin'', his first for a major film studio, was recorded in seven weeks at CTS Studio in London. It was orchestrated and conducted by Nick Ingman, edited by Mike Flicker

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