Although the Cold War is long over, covert mercenaries, whose skills in surveillance, espionage and force-fighting are literally legendary, remain in demand under the new world order and always find high-paying jobs. A certain mysterious client assembles a team of such “paid operatives,” known as “Ronins,” in Paris to steal a top-secret briefcase.

It soon becomes clear that this seemingly simple task is almost impossible: the same price is promised for the same briefcase to several other illegal groups.

To get the job done, a former CIA agent nicknamed “Sam” and his hastily assembled squad must do what they have never had to do before: trust each other…

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Paris. An empty street, faintly lit by the yellowish light of a street lamp. At the foot of a dilapidated staircase are boxes of rotten vegetables. In the shadows of the house, lurking around the corner, a middle-aged man watches intently at the entrance to the diner. There, inside, behind the bar, the silent, tired bartender pours the last customers a beer. The diner closes. Two or three people with deep wrinkles on their faces and strange eye expressions wrap up their jackets and raincoats, ready to leave the establishment and plunge into the chilly Parisian night. That’s when the man who had been keeping watch over the house emerges from the shadows to walk surprisingly lightly up the stairs and open the creaky door to the diner. Before doing so, he glances around the street one more time and, bending over as if to tie his shoe laces, stashes his gun behind a vegetable box…

Have you ever read John Le Carré? Books about Cold War spies? Thrillers that show the hard, gray everyday lives of the spies we used to think of as James Bond? I, too, once thought that spies were good-looking, dressed in tuxedos, sipping martinis and seducing women while ridding the world of mad geniuses. I counted until I read the description of the hero of Le Carré’s books, George Smiley. The spy.

He was a chubby-looking man of medium height, well into his forties. Balding, blind-skinned, wearing glasses, with inflamed eyes and fidgety, nervous movements of his plump hands. He looked like a typical accountant, coming home every day on the evening train, sitting by the window with a newspaper and muttering something to himself. He was a clichéd, outliving yuppie who, once seen, would never be remembered again. There were thousands of people who looked so commonplace.

I was indignant: how could this fat, bespectacled mole be a spy? That’s why the writer did not want to make the hero of his books person remarkable, catchy? But very soon I realized that the choice of novelist was not accidental. A real spy, and should be so. Unremarkable, inexpressive, dull, inconspicuous. A man who day after day pores over his boring work, not attracting anyone’s attention. In reality, he is doing a difficult, dangerous job for his country.

And this work does not consist of chases and shootings, spectacular fights and stakeouts, it is routine, it is the long years of undercover life, which change the personality, leaving an indelible mark in the human soul. Eternal fear, sleepless nights, the habit of sleeping in your clothes, looking over your shoulder and warily listening to every rustle, memories of failed operations and torture, loneliness and constant longing. I learned from Le Carré’s books that the life of a spy is far from as spectacular and beautiful as that of Jan Schleming. It is a heavy burden and a burden taken on by people once recruited by intelligence. They grow old early, lose their illusions early, and believe in nothing but the perhaps phantom benefits they bring to their government.

These are the kind of people we are shown in “Ronin.” Former spies and now ordinary mercenaries brought together to carry out a mission. The employer is the poor, hungry and aggressive Irish Republican Army, an organization too poor to acquire the technology and information it needs for money, and therefore forced to plunder using ronins as soldiers. Why are former operative agents from different countries called ronins? Samurai, who have shamefully lost their masters, and are therefore forced to hire out to anyone who offers a reward?

Because the Cold War is over, and all those who laid down their lives to win this invisible but extremely brutal war are now, in this day and age, left behind. All of them found themselves thrown out on the street, betrayed, and unwanted by wars that nevertheless had to exist somehow. Times have changed, the Idea for which they lived and worked has disappeared, and now, aging, exhausted, professionals who never found themselves in the new times, come together to do the job for money. What did Jean Renault’s character do? He worked as a tour guide until he was invited to participate in the mission. And De Niro? This and that. Unknown. But they got together, and the chase began for the proverbial suitcase, which was to be intercepted, leaving one hand but not reaching the other.

Don’t expect a “Mission Impossible” style spectacle, there won’t be one. There will be no show, no special effects, no true spy shoot-em-up, no grandiose sorties and no less grandiose rescues. Real life will be shown, much of it unflattering, gray, dank and overcast life of spies. I love De Niro in this role, I love Reno, Skarsgard, Natasha McElone, Price, Bean and others. All together and each individually they are unremarkable looking men and men, but appearances are deceptive. They are extraordinary, brave, resourceful people, tough but solid, distinctive. People I respect infinitely. The wreckage, the shards of the Cold War.

I love this film. Shot in gray-blue tones, unfriendly and prickly, it is infinitely dear to me, and I love revisiting it, going headlong into the narrative and closely examining these interesting, deep, forever grounded in their hard work. In my opinion, “Ronin” is one of the best spy thrillers of all time. It is as if it were based on Le Carré’s book, and is completely in the spirit of that time – a time that has passed, however, forever settled in the empty, mutilated souls of former samurai.

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (94.5 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: FLAC 2.0
English: Dolby Digital 2.0

Subtitles
English SDH, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Cantonese), Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Persian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish (Castilian), Spanish (Latin American), Swedish, Ukrainian.