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Movie Review:
Ronin
Review by Katharine
E. Monahan Huntley
Ronin, John
Frankenheimer's political thriller, is more Mission Impossible
than his 1962 critically acclaimed The Manchurian Candidate.
The objective characters (for the most part, mercenaries, terrorists,
CIA, etc.), are barely sketched out. Expertise is their identification-what
they answer to is an alias. Like the characters in this convoluted intrigue,
the audience is challenged to conjecture: What the hell is going on?
Visually exciting,
the objective story appears to intentionally revel in its intellectualized
confusion-unfortunately to the audience's bewilderment. The potential
subjective story is ambiguous as well. Little is known of the
main character-less of the two possible obstacle characters.
What elevates Ronin from standard action fare, however, is the
restrained performances that lend believablity to the endeavor (objective
story domain-physics).
Unlike the brilliant
Manchurian Candidate (analyzed at a future date), Ronin is not a Dramatica
grand argument story. Or if it is, determining its structure is as
perplexing as unraveling its plot.
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