Ronin: French for Fantastic Car Chase

 You can't watch the chase scene in RONIN (1998) without bucking around like you're in the back seat one of the cars. It's impossible to stay still when the Puegeot 406 sedan driven by ROBERT DE NIRO's character, Sam, chases a BMW 535i through the streets and tunnels of Paris. There are more gasping near misses, fiery crashes and burned rubber than Friday rush hour on the Long Island Expressway. It's like the unbelievably long and involved scene was created by a total car nut for others similarly afflicted. Indeed, director JOHN FRANKENHEIMER is a rabid auto enthusiast who insisted on using real cars with no special effects and minimal musical score. The symphony of roaring engines, squealing tires and breaking glass is more than enough. It's one of the greatest car chases in moviedom. Best of all, it's one of many in the film. There's also several fantastic scenes with an Audi S8 powersliding and speeding through the cobbled streets of Paris with enough velocity to make SEAN BEAN's character puke, which he does, noisily. When the big, nitrous-oxide boosted Audi flies through the impossibly narrow streets of Nice you nearly get the urge to hurl just by watching. If you can't ever be in a enormously destructive and dangerous car chase yourself, Ronin provides an amazingly real substitute. Photo credit: RONIN, Jean Reno, 1998, shoot