Ronin (1998)

Ronin

A freelancing former U.S. intelligence agent tries to track down a mysterious package that's wanted by both the Irish and the Russian governments. (IMDb) Directed by John Frankenheimer from a script by J.D. Zeik and David Mamet, who took the pseudonym Richard Weisz, the thriller was released on 25 September 1998 and gathers a crew of out-of-work Cold War operatives hired in Paris to seize a mysterious briefcase. Robert De Niro plays the American Sam alongside Jean Reno as Vincent, Natascha McElhone as Deirdre, Stellan Skarsgard as Gregor, Sean Bean as Spence and Jonathan Pryce as Seamus O'Rourke; shot on location in Paris, Nice, Cannes and the Arles amphitheatre, it is best remembered for car chases critics ranked with those of Bullitt and The French Connection. (Wikipedia)

Watches

Jardur Bezelmeter

Worn by Robert De Niro as Sam. Sam's steel Jardur rides on a black leather strap with off-white stitching and shows up whenever he raises a weapon, a 1940s American cockpit instrument on a man who does his own reconnaissance. Which Bezelmeter it is remains open. The Watch Spot, the watchmaker's blog that first identified it, studied the film stills and read it as the earliest model, the 950, "recognisable by the oval pushers and cathedral hands," and hedged the call; BAMF Style repeats that reading in both of its Ronin costume breakdowns and credits The Watch Spot for it, while Watch ID files the same sighting as a Bezelmeter 960, citing the same Watch Spot article, whose title happens to name the 960 example the watchmaker was restoring rather than the film watch. No frame resolves the pusher shape that separates the two, so the appearance stays at the family. The same source records that the watch was supplied by a Parisian dealer once shooting began in France and that De Niro reportedly kept it afterwards, an account The Watch Spot itself calls largely unsubstantiated. Montres de Luxe disagrees outright, captioning the same wrist as an Omega Speedmaster chronograph with no further description of the case or dial; the reading is uncorroborated elsewhere and runs against three independent sources converging on the Jardur, so it is recorded here as an open disagreement rather than folded into the Jardur identification above. (The Watch Spot; BAMF Style; BAMF Style, leather jacket; Watch ID; Montres de Luxe)

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