Ripley's Game Poster

Ripley's Game (2002)

Crime | Mystery 
Rayting:   6.6/10 17.4K votes
Country: UK | Italy
Language: English | German
Release date: 28 May 2003

A dying family man in need of money is persuaded to assassinate a European crime boss.

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Doylenf 6 February 2004

Anyone who starts watching this little known film will have a hard time turning away. It takes Patricia Highsmith's novel and turns it into a stylish thriller, full of handsome interiors and lush location photography in Germany and Italy. Given the benefit of expert performances by John Malkovich, Dougray Scott and Ray Winstone, it's a tale that moves along at a fast clip and never lets go of the suspense.

It's more absorbing to watch without knowing anything of the plot, so I'll skip plot details and just say it has elements of Highsmith's other suspense tales (innocent man drawn into a murder for hire scheme) and most closely resembles her "Talented Mr. Ripley" story so successfully brought to the screen a few years ago.

John Malkovich, with his strange acting mannerisms makes a quirky anti-hero as Ripley and gets excellent support from Dougray Scott who makes the innocent carpenter a believable and sympathetic collaborator. Ray Winstone makes the obnoxious Reeves a vivid character. The train sequence involving the second murder is extremely well done.

Highly recommended as a vivid, colorful thriller.

blanche-2 23 November 2007

Fmovies: Tom Ripley is at it again, this time in "Ripley's Game," a 2002 European production starring John Malkovich, Dougray Scott, Ray Winstone, and a host of European actors and actresses, all very good in their roles. Ripley at the beginning of the film is involved in an art scam with a partner, Reeves (Winstone). It doesn't go down quite as planned. The film picks up three years later in Italy where Tom is living la vida loca, fabulous house, gorgeous musician girlfriend, best cook around. He overhears himself being insulted by a picture framer, Jonathan Trevanny (Scott) while at a party. Later, Ripley's old partner appears and wants some people rubbed out, and Ripley suggests Trevanny. Knowing human nature as he does, he's pretty sure Trevanny will do it and in Ripley's world, a man's soul is fitting revenge for an insult. However, Reeves wants more than one job done. Ripley then becomes a little more involved than he wanted.

The character of Tom Ripley is a fascinating one, and he is played to complete perfection here by John Malkovich who manages to capture both Tom's charm and even kindness as well as his dangerous side. Though he lacks Matt Damon's boyish charm, this is Ripley later on, and Tom has added to his survival skills. For Ripley, it's all part of the game.

"The Talented Mr. Ripley" was a very disappointing film with great scenery and some incredible absurdities; this film is not without some absurdity but here, because of the director and Malkovich's handling of the material, the absurdity of the scene on the train would almost be funny if the reality of it wasn't so gruesome. In "The Talented Mr. Ripley," stupidity was played stupidly, such as Tom pretending to be David while Philip Seymour Hoffman was in the next room.

I found this film much better, much more suspenseful and compelling. I hope Malkovich has another chance to play Ripley.

aussiebrisguy 25 July 2006

I must admit I enjoyed Matt Damon and company very much in The Talented Mr.Ripley. The character of Tom Ripley is thoroughly dislikable but also intriguing. Therefore when I realised that another Ripley film had been made I was curious to enjoy the earlier experience again. I was not disappointed either. John Malkovich who I usually do not like as a performer was totally creepy and perfect as an older Ripley. Up against him was the very talented Dougray Scott as his unlikely accomplice in murder, Jonathon Trevanny. There are grisly murders galore in this film of revolting Russian mafia murderers. The ending is great. I won't give it away as it would spoil it for others. The Italian and German settings are brilliant as are the train scenes. This film is very enjoyable.

ccthemovieman-1 21 June 2007

Ripley's Game fmovies. This was good; a solid crime story. It's the "Tom Ripley" of "The Talented Mr. Ripley," but now older and being played by John Malkovich instead of Matt Damon. He's also, at least to me, a totally different character so this story stands on its own. There's no tie-in to that previous film

Malkovich plays his normal role, playing the kind of character he's good at playing: the smart, sarcastic and sadistic villain with the interesting vocabulary. In this story, he blends in with the locals as somewhat of a nondescript guy but inside he's a man with no conscience who is a killer. Late in the film, he admits and brags about having no conscience.

The plot in this movie revolves around Ripley having someone else do some of the latest killings for him, an "average Joe" that no one would suspect. That role is played by Dougray Scott, a young Englishman with a wife and young son, but a man who is dying of leukemia and could use a little extra money for his family when he's gone. That seems to be the lure when the evil Ripley and his partner give him the murder sales pitch. It takes some convincing, but "Jonathan Trevanny" eventually gives in to some persuasion, shall we say. Scott's reaction after the killing is very interesting...and he gets another assignment.

Ripley's partner "Reeves" also is an intriguing guy, played by Ray Winstone who also often portrays this type of character: a vicious, profane thug. If you saw "Sexy Beast," you'll know the type of guy Winstone plays here

Anyway,without giving the story away, suffice to say this wound up a pleasant surprise: great dialog, good photography and acting, some dark humor along with good suspense and just the right amount of action and lulls. It is heavy on the profanity, so beware of that.

This is a film one doesn't hear much about and is recommended for those who enjoy modern-day, tough crime films.

howard.schumann 12 April 2004

In Ripley's Game, the latest screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's series of novels, John Malkovich plays Tom Ripley, the bisexual art connoisseur whose game is manipulation of people for his own ends. The film directed by 70-year old Liliana Cavani, is entertaining but lacks the probing subtlety of Wim Wenders The American Friend, a 1979 Ripley adaptation. Ripley is an unscrupulous art dealer and also a cold-blooded killer. He is cerebral, wealthy, charming, talented, and entirely without principle with something clever to say about everything, even murder. "The most interesting thing", he says, "about doing something terrible is often, in a few days, you can't even remember it." Ripley justifies his acts by saying that they rid the world of useless predators. Malkovich's performance keeps the film afloat, though his smug, sinister persona often borders on camp and Dougray Scott is unconvincing as picture framer Jonathan Trevanny.

Ripley's Game takes place about twenty years after Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley leaves off. Ripley (Malkovich) has married into wealth and now resides in a luxurious Italian villa with his wife Luisa (Chiara Caselli), a professional harpsichord player. When an old crony, Reeves (Ray Winstone) asks him for help in dealing with Berlin mobsters threatening his business, Ripley thinks of a local art restorer and picture framer, Jonathan Trevanny (Scott) who is known to be dying of leukemia. Trevanny is a good candidate in Ripley's mind because he recently insulted him at a party by blurting out "That's the trouble with Ripley-too much money and no taste." Ripley's interest, however, is mostly in the pleasure involved of seeing a mild family man turned into a cold-blooded assassin, no matter how implausible the scenario might be. Trevanny falls for the bait and collects $100,000 to kill a Russian at the zoo.

As one hit deserves another, a second more dangerous plot is hatched to take place on a crowded train but Ripley has to come to Trevanny's rescue when too many bad guys show up. Afterwards, events begin spiraling out of control forcing the picture framer to hide the truth from his wife Sarah (Lena Headley). Though Malkovich fits into the role perfectly, Scott's performance provides little insight into what led a decent family man to become a paid killer. The ending, which could have been suspenseful, is simply unpleasant as the body count escalates. Though beautifully photographed and filled with dark humor, there is little at stake in Ripley's Game and the entire project feels unimportant as reflected in the studio's decision to bypass a theatrical release and send it straight to DVD.

maribert 14 January 2005

I have always thought that Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels were aimed (like a missile) at the reader. So, the films. One's immediate reaction to Ripley tells more about the viewer/reader than anything at all about Ripley. His charm is that he is absolutely immoral in a pseudo-moral universe of sentimentality passing for decency. He has taken the society's values, not at their word, but at their obvious meaning: benefit yourself at all cost; nothing is more important than your own welfare; if it seems necessary, do it - you can probably always get out of the consequences. He is popular with us all, not because he is a snob, or a cad, or a mediocrity,although he may be all of those things. He is popular because we recognize ourselves in him. This film portrays the Highsmith character fully and true to the novels. I found Malkovich, who I usually dislike, perfect in the role and the other actors are excellent. Being a European production makes it easier to avoid the soppiness of The Talented Mr. Ripley, a truly dreadful film to my mind. The score was a grand addition as was the perfect lighting and ambiance of the sets - brilliantly dark, full of the emptiness of a reality so flatly conveyed.I will be happy to see it again.

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