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(Portions of this review have been pulled from the original one-disc version of Ronin, which can also be found in the reviews portion of the site)Synopsis

I think the only thing I remember about Ronin initially was that Robert DeNiro (Heat) was involved in some scandal involving a French "house of ill-repute" or something along those lines. But when Ronin was released, people quickly forgot about that mess, as what came from it was an action film that put a little more e...fort into the characters than other action films. But that’s not to say the action scenes were neglected; the car chase scenes that negotiate through winding French country roads, and through city sidestreets so narrow you couldn’t open either car door to get out of the car, are some of the most nail biting in recent memory. Based on J.D. Zeik’s story and rewritten by Richard Weisz, a.k.a. David Mamet, Ronin’s introduction is a title card about Japanese samurai without a master, who are mission-less assassins. As a US operative named Sam, DeNiro is introduced almost immediately to the group, who include Frenchman Vincent (Jean Reno, Leon), the Russian, Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard, Dogville) and the Brit, Spence (Sean Bean, Lord of the Rings). Their liaison between them and their employer is the Irish lass Deirdre (Natascha McElhone, Solaris), and their object is a briefcase whose contents are mysterious.