Ripley's Game (2003)

Just what I expected

Admirable film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blistering performances.

The Netflix DVD projected a story that was virtually ludicrous at times, sloppily directed and relied on the most hackneyed of hack 'writing'; coincidences happening at crucial moments. A maximum of 1,000 words (plus my own valuable time) will necessitate a less lengthy critique of this heavily flawed film. 1. Since the art dealer at the start of the film accepts Riley's comment that the 'forgery' will still be sold by the dealer for x amount of dollars then why any artifice at all. The two parties are colluding on a scam. 2. After Riley leaves the dealer's place he gives Reeves their entire profit of $400,000. Why does he do that? To sever their collaboration! Story suggestion: Why not take the $200 grand and then tell him you're not doing business with him anymore. 3. Ripley, owning a magnificent palace? His scams must be extraordinarily successful to afford that lifestyle (and with only one servant, a cook, to look after the place? How about a staff of 15?) 4. In an awkwardly staged gotcha scene Jonathan goes on and on as he puts down Ripley. Not one person in a presumed group of friends alerts him to his gaffe? But more interesting is what Jonathan is griping about.....Ripley's lack of taste! Was the writer smoking crack? Having a classic bourgeois talking about the 'taste' of a man who plays classical music on the harpsichord, loves art, loves good food, loves a good looking classical musician who is crazy about him? Errrrrh, who is the tasteless person here? 5. Reeves somehow traces and finds the almost compulsively thoughtful, careful, thorough plan-making Ripley and gets him to accept a preposterous story about how he can't murder a rival because suspicion will be attached to him. That particular crowd of Berlin criminals is a large one, probably known to the police and Reeves isn't clever enough to create an alibi and hire some goon to get it done? He wants Ripley to do it. Why should Ripley accommodate him? Given R.'s m.o. he would kill Reeves to get rid of him. But then the pseudo-sociopathic (I'll get back to this later) Ripley, stung beyond belief by having been put down publicly at the party by J., finds out somehow that J. is terminally ill and 'needs the money' and passes his name on to Reeves as someone who could be manipulated into becoming a hit man. What?! J. looks like a sick man (though he seems not to have any physical impairments as the movie goes on) and though his work place in Milan is spacious and looks like it's successful, it doesn't enter his mind to move to a humbler more affordable rental. And speaking of his finances, though his home is not palatial it's quite grand. How about moving to a smaller place and, by the way, stop throwing expensive parties. The comments about J. in this section are small potatoes compared to my main thought: I could never for a moment accept that the personality created on the screen was someone who would make the leap from being a decent husband and father into a hit man murderer. 6. Ripley is not a true sociopath but a pseudo-sociopath because he suddenly develops a conscience and/or 'feelings' about Jonathan. Sociopaths don't pack the gear for this kind of behavior. (Suddenly it's a black humor buddy movie?) 7. I'm starting to tire over this review since there's so much more to say. I'll end therefore with one example of a director's (or script supervisor's) sloppiness: Reeves, with 3 or 4 hit man in the same locale after him, goes into a rage when Ripley cuts him loose. Reeves starts shaking the bars of the gate outside of the property's entrance. Fit to kill, he can't figure out a way of accessing the property. But moments later Jonathan somehow does and rides his bicycle to the palace. Then, later still, J.'s wife drives up to the house, somehow getting the gates to open and close behind her. Then for the unbelievable coincidences: Here's but one. The hit men after Ripley are clever enough to breech the gate and in daylight are spotted approaching the building. This occurs because Ripley 'happens' to be looking out the right window and can see them. Later, as J. is about to get his brains blown out Ripley just again (what luck the man has!) is at the right door at the right time to prevent this from happening and shoots the hit man. I'll conclude now. I understand that the original director walked off the project early on and that John Malkovitch took over directing. This explains much of what went wrong. And finally, it's almost always rotten pictures that go straight to DVD because the producers believe they have a bomb on their hands.....and that's why Ripley's Game suffered that fate.

John Malkovich plays the sort of character you wish him to play in all movies. A calm, collective, emotionless director of intensity and intelligence. He seems to have such a professional balance of effeminate attitude; contrasted to his very manly appeal. It's easy to say Malkovich is what really makes this film worth watching.Without John and imagining anyone else this movie would ride the fine line of a B-Listed movie, but with John coming out as an older, wiser, and hardened Tom Ripley the movie is instantly worth shelving in your collection. I wouldn't say it's a classic, but it's a classic Malkovich.The film basically takes place many years, probably decades and decades after the original: The Talented Mister Ripley and Ripley appears to be completely different. Complete evolved and trained in what sort of monster he had become. He lives in Europe living the high life as a black market art dealer and owns a beautiful plot of land with a mansion with a beautiful and talented wife to boot. A wife who even knows his business makes you realize how amazing Tom Ripley is. To be a thug-con artist and swing an amazingly talented wife at the same time.The plot starts rolling with Tom Ripley being publicly insulted at a neighbor's dinner party. The subject being that "he has no taste". Tom rolls with it and ignores it for the most part but tracks a laughable revenge by setting him up with a mobster who coerces him (the insulter of Ripley) to become a one time hit man.Things spiral out of control from there. Or at least out of control for everyone, but Ripley, who seems to just be calm, collective, and uncaring of all the events surrounding him. This film doesn't have the greatest cast or the best plot. It's not that that makes this film worth watching. It's the superior class Malkovich brings to the stage/film. If you like Malkovich and/or liked the original film, you will want to see this.

I enjoyed this film, but only in parts.John Malkovich makes an excellent psychopath (as always!) and at the same time conveys that sense of suaveness and sophistication that Highsmith gave Ripley in the book. He also manages to get across the ambiguity between coldness and sympathy which is key in this film.But, the rest of the film is less inspiring. We have three other main characters: Trevanny, Tervanny's wife and Reeves Minot. Dougreay Scott as Trevanny seemed wooden and somewhat out of his depth in the part. Lena Headey's acting was more suited to a soap opera and personally I found her completely unconvincing.Ray Winstone turned in his standard East-end cockney gangster performance - liberally sprinkled with expletives. I had two problems here: this take on the character seemed out of place in Ripley's milieu (I could not believe he would have been involved with such a "common" person); I think Winstone could have been directed to produce something more inspiring. It seemed to me a more sophisticated villain would have been more appropriate.On the other hand, the locations are mostly beautiful and the story is of course good, being lifted for the most part from Highsmith's novel. So, an OK film, but one which might have been much better if led by a better director one feels.

Not a great movie but quite enjoyable with a thin but interesting plot. It is saved by the excellent main cast, beautiful cinematography (Tuscany in winter) and a great musical background. Before the opening credits we view Malkovich (an excellent actor with a penchant for weird parts) sporting a black Hungarian looking beret in a bleak winter Berlin street talking disparagingly to a barely articulate Ray Winstone (Reeves) Ray,who is not quite as good in this part as he is as the lead character in Sexy Beast,is left out in the cold while Malkovich (Ripley) enters the building to con an arts dealer into buying some rare sketches. The prologue sets the scene for the rest of the movie with its very violent conclusion and plenty of gore in between.Three years after Berlin and the opening credits the scene switches to Tuscany (although the movie briefly reverts to Germany later) where Ripley is invited to a poorer neighbour's buffet dinner party by a young neurotic British artisan Dougray Scott (John Trevanny) who seems to like neurotic parts as in Enigma. We learn that John has several reasons to be neurotic as he is slowly dying of a rare and incurable disease. Ripley is an absolutely amoral man who enjoys living dangerously (his game) being hooked on high living in a splendid renaissance country manor with a beautiful Italian pianist wife or mistress. His lifestyle is supported by his activities which can be criminal if required and murder is a routine part of his game when human obstacles need to be removed. He neither enjoys or abhors the killing, it's just all part of the game. Nonetheless, when Ripley kills somebody by beating or strangulation he puts his whole heart into it and does a thorough job not normally stopping until they are absolutely dead except once, a potentially fatally slip for himself.Ripley plays a kind of Devil tempter to the young man's innocence and somehow figures that John (unknown to the young Briton himself) is a natural-born killer if given the right incentive. In this respect Ripley's judgment is off for after a set of grisly murders in which Ripley casually assists the young man John vomits in disgust at what has transpired (strangulation by piano wire and shooting in railway carriage toilet). The incentive offered is a lot of money if he agrees to be a paid killer to feed John's hopeless desire for a cure as well as his pressing need to leave enough money for his attractive young wife and child to live comfortably after his own impending death. John also displays an inexplicable intense and uncalled for sacrificial loyalty to Ripley (despite despising what he call American tastelessness- a remark which Ripley happens to overhear by mistake and may have been the motive for choosing John as a kind of revenge). Thus, Ripley uses the young British man as a tool yet is not without sympathy for him but his cool goals and commitment to his game do not inhibit him from his initial exploitive plan initially to find someone to carry out an assassination of one of Reeves's Russian mafia rivals. Ripley accepts the job simply to get Reeves, who he regards as a crude and uncouth being, off his back.The movie tends in the end to be more than a bit reminiscent of the last few scenes of Straws Dogs. I liked it enough to save the VHS tape I made of it from a TV showing of the movie. However, after two viewings of the movie in the past two years I may yet reuse the tape.