John Frankenheimer's Ronin is the travelogue his French Connection II should have been. In that sequel, Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle pursued nemesis Alain Charnier, the ruthless heroin dealer played memorably in both instalments by Fernando Rey, on his home turf, but the film ditched most of its opportunities for spectacular action sequences in new-to-American-eyes locales in favour of an addiction subplot that saw Doyle roaming the gutters of Paris, doped out of his gourd. Ronin, a movie that could pretty much be called "The French Connection," is an international spy story that takes full advantage of exotic France by setting most of its action behind the wheel, leading to many a scenic view of the countryside.

Robert De Niro stars as Sam, the strong, silent co-head of a ramshackle militia--various mercenaries have been assembled to carry out the retrieval of a mysterious suitcase. Said package will cause mass hysteria should it fall into the hands of some Russian terrorists; Sam, who may or may not be ex-CIA, trusts his team members about as far as he could throw them, save for Deirdre (Natasha McElhone) and Vincent (Jean Reno), who earn his trust through sex and cool, respectively. And Ronin resurrects the car chase, the bread-and-butter of colour TV-era cinema that was laid to rest in the same cemetery as Burt Reynolds' career. According to the DVD's liner notes, Frankenheimer (director of the ambitious racing picture Grand Prix) insisted on shooting the big auto stunts himself rather than leaving the choice of angles and choreography to a second unit. As soon as I saw a shot of an unsuspecting fish stand (this kind of blatant set-up always pays off with a mighty crash), a wave of nostalgia overcame me: in this era of computer-generated set-pieces, we rarely see anything as viscerally satisfying as Ronin's vehicular mayhem anymore.

De Niro may have found his late-period calling: his typical brooding and detachment make for a perfect hero in The Man With No Name vein, and his relationship with McElhone is adult, restrained, and curiously touching. (Deirdre's roadside manoeuvre on Sam is 1998's sexiest love scene.) I wish that Ronin had scored bigger at the box office: there is franchise potential in not only De Niro's Sam, but also the actor's great chemistry with both McElhone and Reno. (It's not just the open ending that begs a sequel.) Other things that make Ronin a pleasure to revisit on DVD: Elia Cmiral's evocative score, plus a dazzling climax set at a rink that carries far more suspense than Snake Eyes' similar arena shootout. Here, Frankenheimer borrows from his previous The Manchurian Candidate (or rather, reverts to its archetypes) to good effect as an assassin waits for the okay to open fire on a famous figure skater (bona fide famous figure skater Katarina Witt).

Unfortunately, one aspect of Ronin still leaves an unpleasant aftertaste: the recent peace treaty between Britain and the IRA is incorporated into the plot as if to legitimize Sam's impossible mission. It's superfluous and insulting, not unlike the real-life war atrocities Frankenheimer trivialized with the Leni Riefenstahl-ish dénouement to his laughable remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Frankenheimer's political courage transformed The Manchurian Candidate into one of the most socially significant films of the 1960s, but his genre pictures are often too flimsy to support his soapboxing.

One aspect of MGM's otherwise exceptional Ronin DVD irks me, too: "Thank you for purchasing the MGM DVD release of Ronin.You now have an extraordinary opportunity: to participate in an online, multimedia behind-the-scenes tour of the making of the film, hosted by director John Frankenheimer!" No, I don't. On March 14^th at 8:00 PM EST, PC owners (sorry, Mackies) with DVD-ROMs who register at MGM's site will be taken step-by-step through the making of Ronin and, afterwards, treated to a live on-line chat with Frankenheimer. Your web browser will utilize "Interactual Technologies" to communicate with your Ronin DVD.

Now, those of us who spent hundreds of dollars on real DVD players aren't totally lost: the clips that will be shown in the online tour are accessible via the "title" menu. However, without context or narration, they're just a series of random scenes and outtakes. (And anyone familiar with the Video Essentials disc knows what a bitch navigating titles can be.) In any event, I predict that this event will be a bust. A chat with De Niro? That might draw a crowd. But can Joe Computer appreciate an interaction with John Frankenheimer? Moreover, will he/she gain much insight beyond what Frankenheimer tells us on the DVD's informative commentary track--or even want to? (The disc's 8-page production booklet also includes several making-of anecdotes.) Finally, MGM should know that every computer geek in North America reserves Sunday evening for "The Simpsons" and "The X-Files". At least New Line's DVD-ROM content isn't date and time specific.

Ronin is presented in 2.35:1 (and 16x9-enhanced) on side A and in fullscreen on side B. Because it was shot in Super35, the fullscreen version does offer more information at the top and bottom of the image.* However, it doesn't "look right"--remember that cinematographer Robert Fraisse composed for a widescreen frame. Colours are slightly undersaturated, as was Frankenheimer's intention; as a result, contrast is a little weak in bright exteriors. Much of the movie is set in dark warehouses and seedy hotels, though, and the shadow detail in these locations is phenomenal. This transfer is very close to what I saw in the theatre last September.

Surprisingly, Ronin remains a spectacle at home. That's at least partly because of the DVD's bassy, high-quality reproduction of the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix. The surrounds are active at regular intervals, but the sound designers have not taken the "wall of sound" approach of, say, Armageddon--the effects contribute positively to the on-screen hurlyburly but never upstage it. The French soundtrack is also in 5.1, and it's odd watching Reno speak in his native tongue with someone else's voice.

The final audio option is a feature-length commentary by Frankenheimer, which can be accessed via remote as well as from the ultra-cool animated menu. Dramatic pauses aside, this track is non-stop entertainment. (Why does Ronin climax at an ice show? Because Frankenheimer likes figure skating, and felt like throwing it into the screenplay.) It's fun to listen to a true Hollywood vet--perhaps one can gleam from his words the secret to career longevity. The only other special feature (what, no trailer?) included is an alternate ending (taken from a video workprint) that is incoherent and silly. I'm glad the powers that be saw fit to exclude it from release prints.-Bill Chambers

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*Loath to the look produced by the anamorphic lenses used for Panavision, believing they distort the image and inhibit absolutely crisp focus, James Cameron has shot many of his films this way. Super35 enables him to have his cake and eat it, too--it utilizes the entire frame of a 35mm filmstrip; the final image is then cropped slightly at the top and bottom and printed anamorphically to enable full widescreen projection. (Printing something anamorphically means to "squeeze" it onto a standard frame and "unsqueeze" it using special lenses in the projection; printing something anamorphically and shooting something anamorphically are entirely different things.) For home video, the cropped information is restored, with only a little bit of side information lost to the squarish dimensions of a television set. (Eliminating the need, in most cases, for panning and scanning.) Other filmmakers currently in favour of Super 35: Martin Scorsese and Peter Jackson.

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