Cryptic cloak-and-dagger adventure, with the Russians and the Irish in competition for the unidentified contents of a metal suitcase currently in the possession of unidentified secret agents. One of the two credited screenwriters is David Mamet under the pseudonym of Richard Weisz (apparently he refuses to share credit under his right name), and that would certainly help to explain the unexplainable. The title, at least, is explained in a printed preamble as the term for masterless samurai in feudal Japan, but this doesn't seem to make much sense, either, once you hear the famous legend of the forty-seven ronin as recounted by Michael (formerly Michel) Lonsdale with the visual aid of toy action figures and a miniature castle. (Film buffs familiar with Kenji Mizoguchi will already know the story.) We learn a few new tricks of the spy trade, especially in a reconnaissance expedition to a Riviera hotel to size up the opposition, and Robert De Niro makes a convincing display of knowing what he's doing. The director is the veteran John Frankenheimer (returning very near the turf of his French Connection II), and the movie might be said to be engagingly old-fashioned if by old-fashioned we do not mean the espionage thrillers of the Forties or Fifties or much of the Sixties, but rather the depressing developments of the chase-happy Seventies. (We here have no fewer than half a dozen distinct chases, four by car, two by foot.) Frankenheimer shows his age in a couple of ways. One way: his continued fondness for imitation Orson Welles deep-focus compositions. Second way: his disinclination any longer to keep the entire field of view properly in focus. Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgard, Jonathan Pryce. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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