Ripley's Game (film)

Ripley's Game
Directed by	Liliana Cavani
Screenplay by	Peter Berry Frank Deasy Charles McKeown
Based on	Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith
Starring	John Malkovich Dougray Scott Ray Winstone Lena Headey Chiara Caselli
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	Alfio Contini
Editing by	Jon Harris
Distributed by	Fine Line Features (USA)
Release date(s)	February 16, 2004
Running time	110 min.
Language	English
Budget	$30,000,000

Ripley's Game (2002) is a feature film based on the 1974 novel of the same name, the third in Patricia Highsmith's "Ripliad," a series of books chronicling the murderous adventures of con artist Tom Ripley. John Malkovich stars as Highsmith's anti-hero, opposite Dougray Scott and Ray Winstone.

The director is the veteran Italian filmmaker Liliana Cavani, whose career dates back to the 1960s and includes one of the 1970s' most controversial movies, The Night Porter.

Highsmith's novel was previously adapted in 1977 as The American Friend by director Wim Wenders, starring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz.

Plot

Tom Ripley is living in Veneto and is involved in an art scam in Berlin, partnered with Reeves, a thuggish British gangster whom he orders to remain out on the street as the deal takes place. A violent argument breaks out in which Ripley kills one of his "customers." He gives the money to Reeves but takes the artwork for himself, curtly informing Reeves that their partnership is over.

Three years later, Ripley is extremely wealthy, living in a lush venetian villa with his wife Luisa, a beautiful harpsichordist. One day, a neighbor invites him to a party, and has a pleasant time until he overhears the host, Jonathan Trevanny, insulting his taste and making a guarded reference to his questionable past. Ripley briefly confronts him, then sullenly leaves the party.

Reeves resurfaces, much to Ripley's annoyance, asking him to eliminate a rival mobster. Remembering the slight, Ripley recommends that an amateur do it — Trevanny, a law-abiding art framer who is dying of leukemia. Reeves offers a bewildered Trevanny the job, which he turns down. He is tempted by the money, however, which he could leave to his wife, Sarah, and son, Matthew, upon his death. He eventually goes through with the job, a hit in Berlin, which he assumes will be a one-time-only assignment. Reeves has other ideas, however; he blackmails Trevanny into taking on another assassination, this time a complicated one on a train.

Trevanny panics and freezes up on the train, but Ripley intervenes in the nick of time. After the two of them dispatch three hoodlums in the W.C., Trevanny forms an uneasy friendship with Ripley and returns home. He then vainly attempts to persuade Sarah that the money he suddenly possesses is the result of gambling wins in Berlin.

The victims' associates come to Italy seeking revenge; they storm the villa and kill Reeves, leaving his body in the boot of their car. Ripley has set traps for them, however, and terminates each, with Trevanny's increasingly eager assistance.

Trevanny comes home to find two more thugs holding his wife captive. Ripley spots the killers' car outside in the bushes and doubles back in time to save the day, but in the end Trevanny sacrifices himself to save Ripley from a wounded assassin. Genuinely puzzled by Trevanny's selflessness, Ripley tries to give Sarah her husband's share of the blood money, but she only spits in his face in reply. That night, Ripley attends Luisa's concert as if nothing has happened, but smiles briefly at the memory of Trevanny's bravery.

Cast

• John Malkovich as Tom Ripley
• Dougray Scott as Trevanny
• Ray Winstone as Reeves
• Lena Headey as Sarah
• Chiara Caselli as Luisa

Reception

The film has earned mostly positive critical reviews, rating 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert added Ripley's Game to his "Great Movies" list, calling it "the best of the four" Ripley films he had seen (Purple Noon, The American Friend, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley's Game) and Malkovich "precisely the Tom Ripley I imagine when I read the novels," praising what he felt to be "one of [his] most brilliant and insidious performances." Ebert criticized the decision not to release the film theatrically in North America, writing: "The failure to open it theatrically was a shameful blunder."

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing: "Malkovich oils himself around the plot — icy cool one moment, blazingly violent the next — with a master's finesse. Highsmith wrote five Ripley novels, and other actors have played the part, most recently and most blandly Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley. But Malkovich owns the role. He plays it for keeps." David Rooney of Variety wrote, "Malkovich's elegantly malicious performance gives Ripley's Game a magnetic center, complemented by Liliana Cavani's efficient direction and an enjoyable retro feel that recalls the British Cold War thrillers of the 1960s. Despite some pedestrian plotting and a final act that could be tighter, this is suspenseful adult entertainment that should find a receptive audience."

Other critics were less favorable, such as Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, who gave the film two stars out of five. Some critics compared the film unfavorably to the 1977 Wim Wenders adaptation, The American Friend. Nathan Rabin of The Onion's A.V. Club remarked, "Ripley's Game fatally lacks the squirmy, desperate humanity that made Wenders' take on the same material so hauntingly tragic. Like Malkovich's suavely generic international criminal, it's all craft and no soul, with complexity and depth functioning as collateral damage for its slick thriller mechanics." Neil Young's Film Lounge, giving Ripley's Game a score of 6 out of 10, called the film a "largely uninspired" adaptation by a "pedestrian" director, calling The American Friend "brilliant" by comparison, feeling that "any viewer who is a fan of Highsmith and/or The American Friend will have major problems with this version."

External links

• Ripley's Game at the Internet Movie Database
• Ripley's Game at Rotten Tomatoes
• Filmografia di Liliana Cavani
• Two Faces of Ripley, filmbrain.com comparison of The American Friend and Ripley's Game