If you love this movie, or love good movies in general, then you owe it to yourself to get this new Blu-Ray. Even if you already have the original Blu-Ray or this film. The chases in Ronin are among the most dynamic road clashes the movies have offered in some time. Todd McCarthy.

RONIN is to all intents and purposes a highly intelligent thriller, or so it would seem on the surface. Unfortunately when you start to examine the plot and structure of the movie it starts to fall apart. These ' Ronin ' characters - Who are they? Who employed them? Where was the job advertised?

It`s never really revealed, perhaps just as well since it`d be impossible to explain how such a motley bunch can be taken seriously. Notice one of the characters is a Walter Mitty type but can get the group any type of gun they want, and is this Walter Mitty guy really necessary to the plot?, he`s written out after 20 minutes and it`s difficult to understand why he was included by the final draft.

Totem tribe gold. Collect them all!

Let`s look at the plot. In his book STORY:THE PRINCIPLES OF SCREENWRITING Robert Mckee explained that when he was a script reader for Hollywood studios he`d only be sent two types of script neither of which really worked, one being an understructured real life type drama and an overstructured action thriller involving an object all the great powers want to get their hands on. RONIN certainly sums up the second type of script, the CIA, the Russians, the IRA and quite possibly the winter olympics commitee are after something that will change the world as we know it and it`s up to this group of hired guns to cross, double cross and triple cross one another to get their hands on it RONIN could have turned out a complete mess and despite the movie never being as clever as it thinks it is neither does it become the complete debacle it could have become. My exceedingly high entertainment thresholds were met and then some more and much of it had to do with the cast. This movie hardly features DeNiro`s greatest performance but considering the complete rubbish he`s appeared in since the early 1990s he`s by no means bad and does manage to bring some moral charm to his character. Jean Reno and Stellan Skarsgard are two of the greatest actors Europe has produced in the last twenty years and it`s very interesting to see these fine actors in a high octane Hollywood thriller and British Equity is very well represented with Sean Bean and Jonathan Pryce A highly effective and entertaining thriller which at times is over complicated and plot bare at the same time.

Can you imagine the mess Jerry Brukheimer and Michael Bay would have made of this?