AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Aristides-2 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.

bootlebarth According to IMDb, 'Ripley's Game' cost about $30 million to make. I suppose it helped a few people. John Malkovich, perhaps the most narcissistic, look-at-me actor ever to strike gold in Hollywood, presumably earned a million or two. What we have here is yet another example of the overpaid watched by the underemployed while millions or billions remain undernourished throughout this overcrowded, callous, corrupt, ill-governed world.The plot is stupid beyond belief, and the way it unfolds is also stupid beyond belief. The plot is so stupid that I'd be stupid to summarise it, and any readers would be stupid if they read my distillation of all the stupidities.Why, while living in a world where millions of infants die every year from preventable causes, do people make and watch nonsense like 'Ripley's Game'? Surely time and money could be put to a better use.I thought that Patricia Highsmith, the authorial creator of Ripley, is regarded as a writer of some talent. If the film is even loosely faithful to her novel, the world would be a better place if her books were pulped. I can't help repeating the word: stupid, stupid, stupid.Everyone who is listed on the credits, which run to the usual hundreds, should be ashamed. The only saving grace of this terrible film is the seductive European, mainly Italian, locations. Give me a plodding travel documentary any time.What's the stupidest of a rich choice of stupid scenes? Perhaps the events in the German train toilet, where three garroted corpses (one of which returns to life soon after, wearing a stupid bandage on his ear to indicate that he was the guy almost killed by a wire round his throat) and two assassins comfortably fit into the toilet.I could take a week to list a small fraction of the stupidities in 'Ripley's Game'. I was stupid to view it from start to finish. I'm being stupid to waste more time on this IMDb review. Nobody will read this before they see the film. Anybody who reads this after seeing the film is stupidly adding to the time they have already wasted in its observance.There was a word in the back of my mind that might usefully provide the most concise of summaries. What was it? I remember - STUPID.

OutsideHollywoodLand Tom Ripley is quite a character. Created by mystery maven Patricia Highsmith, it's a treat to see how an actor will breathe him into being. Matt Damon played him with an air of desperation and a hint of victimization in "The Talented Mr. Ripley". John Malkovich's Ripley is definitely no victim and there's nothing desperate about him. In Ripley's Game, Malkovich fine tunes his Ripley into a cynical, cultured, and arrogant creature, who is equally at ease with his European upper-class neighbors as he is with thieves and killers like Ray Winstone's Reeves. We're introduced to Tom killing the bodyguard of a client in a controlled fit of rage for insulting him during a business deal. This lets us know that it's important not to offend Tom's sense of social correctness. Clearly, Jonathan Trevanny, (played by Dougray Scott), a local craftsman, didn't get this message as Ripley overhears him questioning his taste in home renovation during a party. Malkovich's Ripley is a keen observer of the human condition, not only for the knowledge that he might gain and use at some later date, but also for his own private amusement. His disdainful snobbery isolates him from the rest of humanity, including his own languidly gorgeous wife, who we suspect loves him more for his tales than his talents.Ripley's Game examines what happens to Tom as he executes his revenge upon Jonathan, in the midst of his carefully constructed world of confessional sex games, mob drive-bys, and elegant surroundings. Along the way, we're treated to a more well-developed paradox, known as Tom Ripley, who always keeps us watching.

Eumenides_0 I've never followed Liliana Cavani's career with attention. The Night Porter had shown that she knew how to make a movie efficiently. And Patricia Highsmith's name left me confident that the plot would be full of twists, witty dialogue, and suspense; plus, this is a Tom Ripley movie, one of the greatest villains in fiction.This version of the Ripley series was practically unknown to me. I only knew IMDb had given it some very poor ratings. And I love Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley so much, I doubted Cavani's movie could rival it. Well, rival it does, and sometimes it even surpasses it.One of the most interesting things about the Ripley movies is that no actor ever played him twice. This time the excellent John Malkovich takes the role of the amoral, sophisticated dilettante murderer, as he tries to set up a comfortable life in Italy, surrounded by good art and cuisine. A visit from an old business partner shatters his idyllic life as Ripley enters a mind game to turn an innocent man into a hit-man. From here on it's a thrilling journey for Ripley to regain control of his good life through manipulation, intelligence and the occasional murder.Cavani's movie owes little to Minghella's: the pacing here is faster, the dialogue is more back-and-forth, like a machine gun. Whereas Minghella revelled in pretty, but sometimes pointless shots, Cavani focus on the plot, integrating the beautiful cinematography into the action. Matt Damon's Ripley is mostly a passive man, seldom without control of the situation; Malkovich's Ripley is ready for anything. The dialogue in both movies is beautiful, but here Ripley has a wonderful sense of dark humor, making jokes in the grimmest situations.And the suspense is unforgettable. There are many good thrills throughout the movie. But nothing beats a sequence aboard a moving train. The climax of the movie is also tense, showing how Ripley can keep himself cool in the worst of times.This is a pretty perfect movie for what it is: it's a lovely combination of intelligent dialogue (credit is due to Charles McKeown, who co-wrote the script), good characterisation, suspenseful plotting, subdued music (by the master Ennio Morricone), and beautiful cinematography. It was a nice surprise and well worth seeing.