A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

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

RIPLEY UNDER GROUND (2005)Tom Wilkinson. Simon Callow. Clare Forlani… The casting is fine with the unfortunate exception of Barry Pepper (excellent in The 25th Hour) who is miscast as Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley. Then again, this movie is only nominally a Ripley film. Why, because the misfiring slapstick of the screenplay taken with the frenetic "action" orientation of the pedestrian direction are wrong-headed. And that's a shame. Actors, however competent, cannot save films lacking intelligence, wit, subtlety, and style. Highsmith requires these four things, plus atmosphere. Postcard shots of a French château, jump cuts, and wooden dialogue just don't meet the mark. Nor is mere attitude (for example, an arty archness) any substitute for substance (in this case, the mental machinations of Mr. Ripley). And yet, there are worse movies on offer. Far worse.

This movie has all the ingredients to be a compelling movie. It has a great cast, good director, and the co-writer of The Bourne Identity. However, the movie doesn't explore it's themes and characters enough. It doesn't make full use of its interesting premise. The whole thing wasn't utilized. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) was a fascinating thriller/drama with a fascinating performance from Matt Damon and many compelling themes. Tom Ripley is a complex character and his books/films need depth. However, if you are able to get over that, this film is entertaining. Just don't expect anything great.

This was a decent and entertaining movie in its own right, although (like everyone here) it's hard not to compare it to other previous screen-adaptations of the Ripley stories. Among those there are very notable ones, like "The talented mister Ripley" with Matt Damon, "Plein Soleil" with Alan Delon and "The American Friend" with Dennis Hopper, all with very strong characterizations of Tom Ripley. And then there was the dreadful "Ripley's Game" with John Malkovitch. Well, this "Ripley Underground" stands somewhere in-between, depending on how you look at it. I'm a big fan of the novels of Patricia Highsmith. In the Ripley-series (5 novels) Tom Ripley is as charming as Highsmith's other (anti-)heroes, but he's also a psychopath in the "best" sense of the word: highly intelligent and totally void of any conscience. Highsmith loved to play with the possibilities that a character like this created: devious machinations, ingenious murders and cunning solutions when at times things seemed to turn awry. Another important feature is the unobtrusive way in which Ripley manages all his schemes: he's the quintessential boy-next-door whom no-one suspects of anything bad. Now when you want a scrupulous rendering of Highsmith's novel to the screen, this movie fails. The script did use the premise (the forgery of an already dead painter's work and how master-mind Ripley and his accomplices get away with it) but then gave it all kinds of twists and turns of its own. Also they used all the right names, but gave almost all the protagonists a different characterization from the ones in the novel. Now that is not necessarily bad. In the novel only Ripley himself and Bernard really stand out, the others are a bit bland. Obviously the makers of the movie wanted to give more color to the story and the characters and in this they succeeded. However, as to the Tom Ripley character I have some reservations. Here Tom can hardly be called an unobtrusive boy-next-door, he's actually a very sexy stunner (at many times he walks around shirtless to show-off his chiseled torso to prove so). Moreover he's pictured as an active and sensual lady's man, which the original Ripley is very much NOT, in fact there are countless homosexual innuendo's in all of the Ripley-novels (very convincingly captured in Minghella's "Talented Mr. Ripley"). Again, this doesn't have to make for a bad movie, but it makes you wonder why they should want to use the Highsmith-Ripley character at all, when they change its most essential aspects. Then they had better just used the (strong) premise and fill out the story with a bunch of new characters. Anyway, as a movie of its own right it's fine enough. Here Ripley is a very self-confident, ruthless and charming con-man who sets up a smart scheme of fraud and murder and wriggles his way into the bed and the wealth of a beautiful woman. The pace is fast, the movie has a very modern and metropolitan (London!) feel and besides action and suspense also lots of humor (which is definitely NOT Highsmithian, or it would be her macabre sense of dark humor). Maybe that could have used some better editing, at times it's almost too much of a comedy (like the scene where Tom has to clean the blood of two giant white poodles after a killing). The acting is overall very good, I especially liked Allan Cumming as the exasperated priggish gallery-owner, he's is really great and very funny in all of his scenes. Claire Forlani is beautiful, as is Jacinda Barrett as Heloïse. Wlliam Dafoe's name is prominently on the cover of the DVD, but he only has very limited screen-time and they didn't give him much to put his teeth in. Tom Wilkinson as the intelligent adversary of Tom Ripley did a fine job. Ian Hart was also fine as the misguided and abused Bernard, but I was so distracted by the idiotic hair-do they made him wear (a wig, I hope!) that it very much marred my enjoyment of his part. This leaves Barry Pepper as Tom Ripley. Now you wouldn't call him really handsome, but he has these remarkable features that are classical and rugged at the same time (an exciting combination!), he's charismatic, very physical, and plays the intelligent con-man with much flair and obvious fun. All in all: I liked it, not as a Highsmith, but as a fine and entertaining movie in its own right.

Filmed back in 2004, but left on the shelf for 3 years, 'Ripley Under Ground' aka 'White On White' has been released on DVD in Europe.Barry Pepper plays Ripley as something of a low-key rock-star - long hair, a close shave and charisma to burn – and the tone of the thing is far lighter than any of the previous incarnations - 'Purple Noon' ,'The American Friend', 'The Talented Mr. Ripley', 'Ripley's Game', etc.Some early reviewers have referred to it as a 'comedy', but it's not, really. Unfortunately, the lighter tone actually hurts the film a bit, because this outing paints Mr. Ripley as less of a menace and sociopath than any of the Ripley films that have preceded it.This interpretation apparently sprang from a comment that Ms. Highsmith made about the films adapted of her novels: She apparently felt that the films missed the humor of her character and the droll wit of her dark plots. But the humor in this effort tends to undermines the suspense.Beside having freed Mr. Pepper from the short-haired grunt roles that he usually plays, the film really allows Alan Cumming and Claire Forlani to shine in ways that they usually aren't allowed to when they are shoe-horned into American accents. She is officially excused from having participated in 'Meet Joe Black'.It's a good, but not great film. The delight was seeing Barry Pepper stretch-out in the kind of role he's seldom given.I typically enjoy the Ripley films and novels for their psychopathy, but this was different enough to be enjoyable. If you come across it on cable or the Shanghai bootleg carrels try not to overlook it.*** out of *****