Ripley's Game (2002)

Tom Ripley persuades a man to commit a murder for a large sum of money. The situation goes out of control, and that man must escape trouble.

Director:

Liliana Cavani

Writers:

Charles McKeown, Liliana Cavani,

Stars:

Ray Winstone, John Malkovich, Dougray Scott

3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ray Winstone	...	Reeves
John Malkovich	...	Tom Ripley
Uwe Mansshardt	...	Terry
Hanns Zischler	...	Art Dealer
Paolo Paoloni	...	Franco
Maurizio Lucà	...	Franco's Assistant
Dougray Scott	...	Jonathan Trevanny
Evelina Meghnagi	...	Maria
Chiara Caselli	...	Luisa Harari
Lena Headey	...	Sarah Trevanny
Sam Blitz	...	Matthew Trevanny
Emidio La Vella	...	Shoe Shop Owner (as Emidio Lavella)
Lutz Winde	...	Ernst
Nikolaus Dutsch	...	Dr. Wentzel (as Nikolaus Deutsch)
Wilfried Zander	...	Belinsky

Storyline

Tom Ripley - cool, urbane, wealthy, and murderous - lives in a villa in the Veneto with Luisa, his harpsichord-playing girlfriend. A former business associate from Berlin's underworld pays a call asking Ripley's help in killing a rival. Ripley - ever a student of human nature - initiates a game to turn a mild and innocent local picture framer into a hit man. The artisan, Jonathan Trevanny, who's dying of cancer, has a wife, young son, and little to leave them. If Ripley draws Jonathan into the game, can Ripley maintain control? Does it stop at one killing? What if Ripley develops a conscience? Luisa prepares for her concert.

---

Plot Keywords:

concert | money | picture framer | murder | dying | 

---

Taglines:

Older. Wiser. More talented.

---

Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence and language, some sexuality

Details

Official Sites:

Fine Line Features [us]

Country:

Italy UK USA

Language:

English German Italian

Release Date:

7 February 2003 (Italy)

Also Known As:

El amigo americano

Filming Locations:

Aquarium, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany

Box Office

Budget:

$30,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$228,171 (Brazil) (16 April 2004)

Gross:

$228,171 (Brazil) (16 April 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Baby Films, Cattleya, Mr. Mudd

Technical Specs

Runtime:

110 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color (Fujicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

John Malkovich remarked in an interview with the BBC that before starring in this film, he came close to directing The Talented Mr. Ripley and that he was in negotiations to obtain the rights to direct a remake of the first "Talented Mr Ripley" adaptation, Purple Noon.

---

Goofs

Ripley's wife's sweater changes position during their love scene.

---

Quotes

Jonathan Trevanny: One of them's still alive.
Tom Ripley: How do you know?
Jonathan Trevanny: Well, I heard it on the world news.
Tom Ripley: Jesus. I always figured you for a talk radio man. Okay, well, I guess I didn't strangle him long enough. It's not like a garrote comes with a manual.
Jonathan Trevanny: Ah, one of them got a very, very good look at me.
Tom Ripley: Jonathan, that's the first rule of the game. Don't ever worry about anything you can't control, ever. Anyway, I don't think they can trace us here and if they get close, I'll let you know.
Jonathan Trevanny: What about my family? I'm just...
[...]

---

Connections

Followed by Ripley Under Ground (2005)

---

Soundtracks

"Symphony No.3 Opus 36"
(Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)
Composed by Henryk Mikolaj Górecki (as Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki)
Performed by Polish State Philharmonic Orchestra
Courtesy of Philips Classics
Licensed by kind permission from The Film and TV Licensing Division, part of the Universal Music Group

User Reviews

The worst man wins

[s p o i l e r s]

There have been many cinematic Highsmith stories, and even many filmed Tom Ripley's. Why another one? Well, as I am hardly the first to say – Ripley's Game came out in England last summer, and had a brief theatrical showing in New York several months ago – there are ways in which John Malkovich was both born and bred to play the mature Mr. Ripley. Give the young one to Alain Delon or Matt Dillon: both were arguable versions of the fledgling scoundrel. But it's uncanny how well Malkovich wears the skin of the grown man. And it's cruelly weird that in America a film of this caliber could have been sent straight to DVD.

Life requires action, sometimes the slow patience of the lizard, other times the gift of abrupt violence. Ripley's accomplished murders and thefts, so bold, so risky, so improvisational, prove that he possesses the existential courage one needs to survive and enjoy life. As his reward for jobs well done, Tom occupies an expansive Palladian villa in Treviso with a beautiful harpsichordist. He enjoys the best wines, the best cars, and the best risotto made from truffles in his kitchen by the best cook in the Veneto. He knows the difference between a Guercino and a Parmigianino and he's never anything but well dressed. Markovich serves the role as well as it serves him: isn't he, like Ripley, a brash American turned well-heeled European sybarite?

The paradox of the Ripley novels is that a master criminal may also be good at the art of living, and the tricky thing about watching Malkovich is that one may be tempted to admire him. This isn't a new experience for the reader of Highsmith's many novels, particularly the Ripley ones: to enter the world of her criminals has the appeal of being bad and getting away with it. As Graham Greene famously said, `[Highsmith] has created a world of her own – a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger.' And yet within the first ten minutes we see Ripley kill a man with a poker for little more than mishandling some renaissance drawings.

The perfect foil for Ripley in the movie is Trevanny (Dugray Scott), a man whom fatal illness has given an edge of desperate bravado, but who remains sensitive to moral values. Eventually after being lured into committing a serious crime for big money (which he can leave to his wife and young son), Trevanny waits with Ripley in the villa for some gangsters bent on revenge and as they chat to pass the time he remarks that in school he always got caught.

Tom smiles and says, `You know why? Because you didn't think of just killing your teachers!'

John Malkovich hasn't very often played a nice person. Yes, he's been Biff in Death of a Salesman and Tom in The Glass Menagerie, but then we get to Lennie in Of Mice and Men and (triumphantly) Valmont in Dangerous Acquaintances and Gilbert Osmond in Portrait of a Lady. In between he has been an out and out villain as in In the Line of Fire, or supercilious prigs like Port in The Sheltering Sky and Jake in The Object of Beauty. Tom Ripley is Malkovich's triumph. It combines all of these. Is it a surprise that playing the wickedest man of all, he has never been more appealing? Finally all his slimy traits here come together. This is what he's about, we say. At last it all makes sense. Being Ripley has never been more fun and that's because the role fits the actor like a glove. There's something sublimely ugly about him that reminds us that good looks are not the only attractive features in a man. There is also power, taste, and originality. He's elegant, he's an esthete, and he's smart. When Reeves asks him if he has the extra fifty thousand he's offering, he just snaps his cell phone shut. The ruthless man is also impatient with stupidity.

This is an actor's film. Ray Winstone is superb in the smaller role of the abominable, self satisfied lowlife Reeves who comes to Ripley to get a murder done. Reeves is little more than a pretext for a caper, a reason for coming out of retirement, but Winstone makes him forward without ever being overdrawn. Dugray Scott is Trevanny, the picture framer in the Italian town near which Ripley lives who has acute myelogenous leukemia. Scott is an actor who looks both handsome and unwell. He may suffer a little too much, but he also has an admirable recessiveness that keeps the glamour Cavani spreads over her characters (they're all a bit too well dressed, but this film comes out of Italy, the land of 'bella figura') from overwhelming his essential weakness. He also illustrates the strength that comes to desperate men. He gets just as mean as Ripley toward the end, and he dies with a smile on his face.

This film shows us the two essential elements of Patricia Highmith's books: Tom Ripley is pure evil; and it's a lot of fun to be him. Cavani's suave Game gives the Devil his due. People unfamiliar with the Highsmithian sensibility may find the end unsatisfying. But it is perfectly in character.