Customer Reviews

Ripley's Game

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

John Malcovich gives an impeccable performance as middleaged Ripley, playing a perverse game making it up as he goes. Ripley's lover is a beautiful world reknown harpshicord player, who is aware of Ripley's true nature and loves him anyway. Mostly out of boredom Ripley starts a subtle game in which he seduces a perfectly good man to murder, and then steps in to save him, striking an unusual partnership which ends under unusual circumstances.

I did not like this movie. I have seen better movies on television. It was senseless and the main actor John Malkovich was terrible. He was a disgusting lover as well. I hated it and I sold my copy as soon as possible.

Patricia Highsmith is one of those novelists whose time, unfortunately, has come posthumously. Though she died in 1996, it has only been recently that her gifts as a novelist have been appreciated. Much of her core writing examined the psyches of homosexual characters, never exploiting them, only using their sexuality as an enhancement of their full character development. RIPLEY'S GAME, the most recent transfer of Highsmith's book to film, is part of a trilogy she wrote about the character of Tom Ripley, a sensitive, gentle soul who finds his way into the world of the wealth by means of criminal acts. In the first book of the trilogy THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, Tom Ripley is driven by his need for acceptance not only in the (to him) inaccessible world of the wealthy, but also in his urgent need to be loved by other men. In the second novel, RIPLEY UNDERGROUND, Highsmith seems to drop the sexual overtones in favor of pushing Tom Ripley into the arms of a wealthy wife and monetary power, capitalizing on the greed for achievement overshadowing the need for love. By RIPLEY'S GAME the usual trademark Highsmith sexual innuendoes have nothing to do with Ripley, but are very much present in the life of Ripley's confidant in crime - Reeves.

This final installment in the Ripley stories has Ripley as teacher, instructing his pupil in the macabre methods of murder for gain. In the title role John Malkovich is his usual wily, brilliant, but misdirected self and his performance is superb (if similar to all of his other roles). Dougray Scott is Ripley's odd pupil Jonathan, Lena Headey his wife Sarah, Ray Winstone is Reeves, and with Chiara Caselli as Ripley's harpsichordist paramour all four add fine performances. There is beautiful photography of Berlin and Rome and the movement is kept at a keen pace by Director Liliana Cavani. So why just 4 stars? There is just not the flavor of Highsmith's lack of predictability here to justify that. But in all, it is an entertaining movie and sure to encourage more to read the works of Patricia Highsmith.

The movie is by no means a masterpiece, however I am sure most would agree that John Malkovich's sly delivery of the Ripley charector will make anyone who is a fan of cinema ignore all that lacking glamore, that usually comes from bigger hollywood productions. Malkovich is the best part of this movie and to be honest that is easily enough. He appears to be born to play this role. See this movie if you like movies today his acting/charector is like a thunderbolt, he grows on you and doesn't let go.

I think Malkovich captures more accurately the character created by Patricia Highsmith than Damon does. In "Ripley's Game" we see a more perverse and tactician criminal, very near of what Highsmith describes in her novels.

I also am grateful to see this film brought to the end of the 20th Century, plenty of mobile phones, terrific Alfa Romeo cars and modern costume design. The story per se doesn't have significant changes and the film is perfectly set out in another time. In "Talented Mr. Ripley" the story goes back to the 50's or 60's, that is, the time Ms. Highsmith wrote the Ripley's series.

The rest of characters are really interesting. Dougray Scott has an ascending role and not only has he got more presence in the film as it goes on, but this presence is more convincing little by little. Good job.

Another good thing is that you don't have to see the first part to enjoy completely this "Ripley's Game". Very recommendable.

You'll recall Mr. Ripley from Matt Damon's "The Talented Mr. Ripley", which was a movie I had enjoyed for its rhythm but not for its very predictable plot.

This sequel of sorts, with Malkovich playing a more mature Mr. Ripley, is in a similar vein -- not so much of a proforma thriller but more of a field trip inside a criminal's black mind -- but it holds its own pretty well.

As the effortless screenplay sways between the sprawling Italian countryside and the busy architecture of Berlin, we are somehow left rooting for a couple of mincing murderous creeps.

Malkovich's rendition of a mature Ripley sports a fascinatingly life-like rhythm. Our crook leads an immaculate life of the perfect gentleman connoisseur. We find him bicycling, practicing yoga, and, yes, sewing in bed. Even after torching a corpse-filled Mercedes, he takes time out to call his florist. Lecter Hannibal, anyone?

The film is deliciously subtle and yet suspenseful enough to hold your attention for its entire duration. It's a pretty decent rental.

Although I enjoyed the film version of 'the Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon in the lead, John Malkovich's portrayal of an older more desensitized Ripley captures the essence of the Highsmith character more accurately. Bravo Mr. Malkovich! WHile Damon's Ripley ponders over his crimes with a sense of regret fueled by his need for love, Highsmith's and Malkovich's Ripley is too amoral to care. And while in this story, the third of the Ripley quintet, we do encounter a slight bit of conscience and perhaps a tad of regret as Tom maliciously involves a dying man in an assasination simply because he was overheard insulting him, we see Ripley in all his unsavory glory, taking control of situations with the swift precision of the sharpest meat cleaver.

The plot pretty much follows Hishsmith's novel; a slight change of venue from France to Italy and the substitution of an Italian wife rather a French one for Ripley does not change the opulent backdrop depicting the spoils resulting from Tom's doggedness to live a life of good taste and extravagent wealth.

If you are a fan of the Highsmith novels, I recommend this as a must-see. If you are not acquainted with the books, do become so---get to know Tom's malignant audacity and then check out Malkovich's rather on target portrayal. Would love to see Malkovich as Ripley in 'Ripley Goes Underground' where his art deal scam is explained more thoroughly.

Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley is a true sociopath and Malkovich plays him chillingly. Although I had trouble understanding the basic scam that seems to be driving the plot of this movie, I have a hunch it is not really significant anyway. The movie seems to be primarily a metaphor for modern (postmodern?) life and the seduction of an honest (but weak and dying) man by evil. Dougray Scott plays the "innocent" party. His moral struggle and agony is constantly displayed on his face. It is hard to imagine how he as an actor could produce all this intense emotion when he is getting nothing but deadpan understatement from Malkovich. But their partnership on the screen is truly eerie. And the stony coldness of the Berlin setting (with its unforgetable associations with nazi evil) only adds to the general atmosphere of creepiness. Although I don't know if his line comes from Highsmith's novel, it does seem consistent with the existential aura in which she casts her killers to have Scott's character (at his most distraught) ask Ripley, "Why me? Why did you choose me?" Ripley's answer would have done Camus proud.

It's hard to picture Malkovich as the elder version of Matt Damon's Ripley (from The Talented Mr. Ripley). There is no sense of Ripley as the romantically disappointed lost soul committing murders in spite of his earnest desire to be socially accepted. Malkovich "thrives" socially--has a wife (or lover), and even enjoys harpsicord music. It's just not clear what he "gets" from all his success. That, to me, is the definition of a sociopath.

DVD extras can only be accessed via computer/internet.

What can I say but Malkovich??? A stellar performance by the man with beautiful lighting and direction as well. I, for one, could not stand The Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon but this movie is great!!! Again, maybe it's my love for Malkovich as an actor but this movie is really good. My only wish is that there was a little less time drag between some sequences and instead included a little more storyline background. Otherwise, a fantastic film.

It's no great surprise that this film sat on the shelf for two years before going straight to video all over the world.

John Malkovich's particular brand of reptilian charm is perfectly suited to the role of Tom Ripley and it's a pity to think of what he could have done with the same character had he been given a decent film to work with.

Dougray Scott (always great) and Lena Headey have real chemistry and intensity together as well, but they're all let down by a script that feels like a rough first draft and by direction that lacks any confidence.

The film veers wildly from light drama to clumsily staged action to brutal violence to black comedy -- mostly a series of groan-inducing one-liners after Ripley kills people. There's very little energy driving the thing as it lumbers from scene to scene, and it was quite a chore to sit through the whole film.

Perhaps my largest complaint is that the characters have no inner life. After the fascinating psychological exploration of Tom Ripley offered in Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley," this film doesn't even try to let us inside his mind.

The narrative focus is not really on Ripley anyway, but on Dougray Scott's everyman. He, too, remains uninvolving, in spite of Scott's committed performance, because we're not allowed into his feelings either.

There are a laundry list of things Scott's character goes through that are never explored. He's dying of Leukemia, yet this is barely more than a plot point. He is an ordinary man, who decides to commit a murder for money for his family, yet he needs only a brief moment of consideration onscreen to make this life-altering decision.

Later, when he learns that his bland neighbor Ripley is actually a ruthless murderer and proceeds to help him to do away with three men, he barely even bats an eye. And again, when his wife learns what he's been doing and decides to take their son and leave him, he seems only mildly perturbed.

Where is any sense of who this man is? If only the film had let us understand either of these characters it might have been worthwhile.

The locations in Berlin and around Italy are certainly pretty and moodily photographed, and master composer Ennio Morricone tries to tie the disparate elements of the film together with an effective score which is often vastly better than the film. Given the weak script, however the assembled talent had a hopeless task before them.