John Frankenheimer was
already a master by the time he made The
Manchurian Candidate and Seconds in
the mid-1960s and all throughout his career remained among the most technically
proficient and visually pioneering filmmakers of the century. Similar to Sidney Lumet for his distinctive
visual style and directness with telling a straightforward story, Frankenheimer
peaked early into his career before hitting a slump in the late 1970s as his
personal struggles with alcoholism began to affect his work. Still, the director continued working in both
film and television including the Civil War drama Andersonville before inheriting the sinking ship The Island of Dr. Moreau. After that film’s critical and commercial
failure, Frankenheimer quickly needed to clean up the mess left on his resume
and it arrived in the form of a fast and loose heist thriller with one of the
greatest car chase sequences ever put on film: Ronin.
An ensemble action picture
with a rich cast of colorful characters featuring Robert De Niro, Jean Reno,
Sean Bean, Stellan Skarsgard, Natascha McElhone and Jonathan Pryce, the premise
is exceedingly simple and maybe even beside the point: a team of professional
thieves gather in Paris to steal a metallic briefcase from mobsters. Once set loose, the film becomes less plot
driven than a continuous pure flow of characterization, twists and turns
replete with double crossings and elegantly staged shootouts. The beginning and end of the film aren’t
nearly as important as the journey there with a film that by all accounts
should be run of the mill fluff but Frankenheimer’s craftsmanship reshape the
film into a taut genre picture with subtlety and nuance bereft of most cops and
robbers actioners today.
Much like Jean-Pierre
Melville’s Le Samourai, the title and
premise of Ronin lift from the
Japanese designation of a wandering samurai and transpose it into the modern
French criminal landscape. In both
films, there’s a genre exercise at play while each picture’s respective
director is clearly having way too much fun with the piece. Performances across the board are of course
surprising and strong with De Niro and Reno exuding distant cool amid the chaos
while aided by a solid supporting cast.
Mostly though, this is Frankenheimer’s show which is at once a lark and
clearly the work of a technically brilliant visual artist as well as an actor’s
director.
One of my favorite aspects
of Frankenheimer’s contribution to what would become known as the late 1990s
action thriller is how modestly he stages the action, keeping everything neatly
framed and visible while still keeping his camera close to ground zero. Take for instance the aforementioned car
chase sequence, which was all done practically by the way. In a succession of painstakingly designed and
crafted shots and stuntwork, not since Grand
Prix has Frankenheimer’s presentation of the car chase felt so alive and
exciting. Where most action films now
take the Paul Greengrass route of shaking the camera every which way or display
an overreliance on CGI to augment the action, it’s refreshing to see a time
honored master who shows how much more you can do with less and that the
destination is usually only half as fun as the journey there.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki