Best movie of this year hands down!

Just perfect...

The first must-see film of the year.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The Tom Ripley character is one of the great characters of all time. In all the movies, Ripley is a complete sociopath...a man with no sense of conscience and who is willing to do anything to get what he wants in life. The's such a great character because he's so incredibly believable...a textbook example of the antisocial personality. While some incarnations of Ripley were quite gorgeous (especially Alaine Delon in the first Ripley film), this one features John Malkovich who brings his own take on the menacing man. In this case, he looks so incredibly ordinary...yet is a man who kills with zero remorse! The film begins with Ripley committing a brutal murder. However, much of the movie is not about Ripley the assassin but Ripley the master manipulator. Years pass and Ripley notices a young, cocky Jonathan (Dougray Scott) making fun of him at a party. Later, Ripley learns this same man is dying from cancer...and he uses this information to eventually turn this genuinely decent man into a killer...almost as if he's some science fair project! What's next? See the film.I must warn you that this film has some very brutal and vivid murders....and it's NOT a kid's movie!! But it also is very well written, acted and is very engaging and a savvy look at just what sociopaths are capable of doing.

Patricia Highsmith is one of the very best crime writers of the 20th century. Her psychological thrillers are gripping and readable, none more so than the five novels featuring amoral, unemotional, conscience-free American Tom Ripley, who comes from humble beginnings and who amasses wealth by committing crimes such as theft, embezzlement and forgery. The first book in the series - The Talented Mr Ripley - was successfully adapted for the cinema. This later film, which is based on the third book in the Ripley series, is nowhere near as good as that earlier one. It fails to live up to the novel and is disappointingly dull fare. Set in Italy (with a few scenes in Berlin), the story concerns the attempt by Ripley (John Malkovich) to kill two gangsters who are a threat to him and to his British partner in crime, Reeves (Ray Winstone). The gangsters are interfering in Reeves's shady and lucrative business interests and may be able to reveal information about Ripley's criminal past. Both men therefore persuade a young British aristocrat (played by Dougray Scott), who is working as a picture framer, who is dying of acute leukaemia and who desperately needs money to support his family, to assassinate the two gangsters. But matters spiral out of control."Ripley's Game" is most noteworthy for the excellent performance given by John Malkovich. He dominates the film totally and portrays Ripley's sinister, manipulative and slightly psychopathic tendencies to perfection. However, as good as Malkovich's performance is, it cannot rescue a film whose plot and direction are frequently pedestrian, bland and boring. This is a film that is - amazingly, given the subject matter - almost wholly lacking in suspense or tension and in coherent character description and development. It is mind-numbingly dull, so much so that I almost gave up on it on a number of occasions. I decided to stick with it in the hope that it might improve. It didn't. The final scenes are unconvincing and poorly directed (as is most of the rest of the film). The score, by Ennio Morricone, is excellent. But that and Malkovich's performance apart, there is little to write home about. If you haven't read the book on which this film is based, or any of the other books featuring Tom Ripley, I urge you to do so. They are excellent thrillers. But give this very disappointing film a miss. 4/10.

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.

Although I thought early on this flick would be somewhat mindless, I was surprised to find a gem of insight into human character. Ripley, of course, is rich and without conscience so we could easily believe. What in fact Ripley's game really is I am unsure unless we could presume he is Satan in disguise.The psychological abduction of the young father who it was said had a fatal disease, could have been rewritten I think to make the good vs. evil underpinning and irony stronger. Indeed, what did the young man have to lose if his disease was fatal. I suppose one could say, to do as he did, allowing manipulation by Ripley to do great evil, underscores what many soldiers know, to kill once difficult, often and many easy.The plot seemed illogical at times and rushed towards the end. Do you really think, will all these dead bodies, some have baked story about a robbery would explain her dead husband and the German Moffia thugs?The contrast between who Ripley was objectively, a deceptive murderer and thug verses the refined music lover and cultured swine, cannot be over looked.Murder is murder and blood is blood after all.The flick left me pondering some of the more dicey parts of human existence, despite its short comings.