Watch Ripley's Game For Free

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Great Film overall

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Better Late Then Never

Any profound film, book, poem, reveals its essence in its paradox. Ripley's Game is no different. It is a paradox that plays out under the guise of an ordinary film. To this end, it is a film that is enveloped by its own protagonist-antagonist, the paradox of Tom Ripley, a Veneto-dwelling American, seemingly devoid of morals and feeling, yet with all the sensualism and erudition of an epicurean sybarite.Morricone's music, as impeccable as ever, opens the film in Berlin with a slow subtle score before embarking on the clavicembalo (harpsichord) and a beautiful aerial shot of Malkovich's little red fiat coursing through the hills of Treviso.Ripley's Game, based on Patricia Highsmith's novel about the amoral Tom Ripley and his exploits, is a fantastically underrated film which, due to its high-art European status (it was shot on location in Germany and Italy and concerns itself with art first and foremost), was largely passed over in favour of more exciting, and faster moving films. It was a huge financial flop (costing over $30m and recouping barely a tenth of that), and in spite of opening on the big screen in Europe, went straight to DVD in the states.The locations, notably Berlin and the Veneto, are part of the film's charms (dare I say characters in themselves) along with those of the triumvirate of Ripley (Malkovich), Reeves (Winstone), and Trevanny (Scott). The casting is marvellous here, and the three protagonists play off each other's strengths and weakness beautifully. From the very off, the uncouth philistine, Reeves (stoned and waxing as lyrically as he can of Berlin's architecture) aside the Renaissance man Ripley (calm and collected and slightly disgusted at Reeves' crassness), is an absolute joy to watch in its theatricality and Cavani's direction as they walk across the Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin's Mitte district with a view to pulling off a not-so-ambitious art heist.It's almost as fine a scene as one a little later where Winstone's character presents Ripley with a garrotte as they walk across another of Berlin's platz's. Here, we see Malkovich living up to his philosophy as he toys with the garrotte in plain sight as if it were a scarf. 'I don't worry about being caught' he says later on in a remarkable scene in a train station bathroom, 'because I don't believe anyone is watching.' It is this total lack of paranoia which manifests itself as a detached coolness, almost palpably terrible in its calmness, that Malkovich (avowedly a man that has never felt embarrassed) carries off so well in his quiet unruffled countenance. Of all the actors who have played Ripley in their various incarnations - Delon, Damon, Hopper, Pepper - Malkovich is by far the one whom Highsmith herself would have recommended for the role. Indeed, one wonders if it is Malkovich playing Ripley or Ripley playing Malkovich such is the quiet strength of his performance.The plot, though itself flawed, struggles a little here and there to tie (garrotte) things up, and leaves a couple of holes (emphatically, not made by bullets) here and there. But it is the plot's unconventionality, garrottes and pokers instead of guns, philosophy instead of mathematics, art instead of science, that makes the film so wonderfully watchable. It is certainly a film that, perhaps like Ripley should he ever get collared, deserves a fair trial.Ripley at one point calls himself a 'creation' and 'a gifted improviser' when Trevanny asks him who he is. Trevanny doesn't seem to understand. He has never dreamed, never improvised, he seems completely lacking in any spontaneity to the point of pathology. Perhaps this is what leukemia does to you (Trevanny we quickly learn is dying, which explains his succumbing to Ripley's outlandish deal), but perhaps not. The final scene has Trevanny in a moment of what can only be called total spontaneity, doing (or more significantly being) something that Ripley cannot himself understand. For a brief moment, and it shows on the lips of Trevanny, the roles have been switched. The master has become the protégé, the protégé become the master. It is a turnaround of some aplomb, as the circle closes and completes itself.Trevanny's name itself seems to have inspired (or have been inspired by - the timeline is a little muddy here) the airport paperback writer and American film scholar Rodney William Whitaker whose later book and bestseller Shibumi (1979) appears under the pseudonym Trevanian and has all the hallmarks of Ripley's presence, as the following quote illustrates: "Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanour, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. And in the personality of a man, it is…. How does one say it? Authority without domination? Something like that…" It appears that Highsmith's Ripley had cause to inspire. 'All I know is that we're in a constant state of being born.' In this disclosure of Ripley's, again in the bathroom (is not the bathroom the place of revelations?), he perhaps divulges his own bodhisattva nature, not quite Buddha yet (whose birth has by his very (un)nature finished), but on the path. He doesn't quite know why he is helping Trevanny in the farcical train scene, but perhaps this is why: to lead Trevanny to his own awakening. This eventually accomplished, (nirvana comes to most at the point of death), Ripley can return to the music, to the clavicembalo which his mistress caresses so gently, and to the art of living which characterizes the one who has achieved what Whitaker later calls Shibumi. Yet, the question remains, and here is the paradox - that within Ripley's understanding and supposed enlightenment there is an obscurity. There is a darkness, and the angst of still being constantly born.

Tom Ripley, the international man of many identities and numerous con games, is back for another round of cat and mouse. Ripley combines the sociopathic tendencies of Anton Chigurh of "No Country for Old Men, the cultured aspects of Hannibal Lector of "Silence of the Lambs" with the savvy and shrewdness of a con-artist like Gondorf of "the Sting" (played by Paul Neuman). But unlike Chigurh, Gondorf and Lector, Ripley plays at even higher stakes espionage often at an international poker game where losing hands mean destruction. Being able to bluff means survival. He defrauds antiques and art dealers. Infiltrates the highest levels of society. And he cons people into believing he is something he is not. While he has the intelligence of a trained assassin he can also identify genuine and fake artworks.In the current story, Ripley is middle-age and living well in a beautiful villa near a small medieval/renaissance-like town in Italy. He has the best taste in art and cuisine. He lavishes his Italian female companion with endless kisses and authentic Baroque-period harpsichords. She seems to know what he does and accepts him and his unconventional behavior. She seems detached from all that he does.One of his former art scam partners, Reeves Minot, arrives one day to his villa, inviting himself to brunch. He's opened up some clubs and a restaurant in Berlin, probably as a front for drug-dealing. He explains that some "neighbors" have become competitors in his racket and he is soliciting Ripley's help to "de-regulate them" for a fee of $50,000. Reeves doesn't want to carry out the deeds himself because it would be too obvious to the authorities as to who probably eliminated his competitors. Ripley initially refuses also fearing it would be too obvious to the police, given his former connection to Reeves. Ripley then suggests that an innocent, someone who has never before played "the game" might be the perfect choice for the job. The authorities might never suspect someone who was completely unconnected in the realm of the underworld.Ripley then suggests a British art framer, Jonathan Trevvany, whom Ripley had previously visited at a social occasion in which he was inadvertently insulted. The art framer has several weaknesses which might entice him into the "game". He has never played, he makes little money from his work and can barely support his family, and he is dying of leukemia. In short, he has almost nothing to lose. The money could help his family after he's gone, and the authorities would most likely never suspect a poor framer whose days are numbered.Reeves begins to solicit Trevvany, playing hard-sell. He even agrees to pay the cost for special tests and possible treatment with a leukemia specialist in Berlin. Trevvany eventually agrees and is pulled into the game. At first he believes that Reeves is the only one he knows who is involved. He regards Ripley as only an acquaintance in the Italian town. But then he discovers Ripley's "other life", unexpectedly.A fun-filled, dazzling, and no-hold's bar mystery-thriller. Ripley stories are essentially cerebral thrillers, a thinking-man's answer to characters like Anton Chigurh and the Terminator. Certainly blood is spilled and innocents die, but all under the watchful gaze of renaissance frescoes and statues. Ripley even knows the best places to acquire high-quality meat and wine. And he is gourmet cook in his own right. I think the main idea behind Ripley is to entertain. I don't believe there is any underlying meaning or theme in these stories, just Ripley and his very unique brand of crime, like a fine Merlot, 1996.

Tom Ripley is quite a character. Created by mystery maven Patricia Highsmith, it's a treat to see how an actor will breathe him into being. Matt Damon played him with an air of desperation and a hint of victimization in "The Talented Mr. Ripley". John Malkovich's Ripley is definitely no victim and there's nothing desperate about him. In Ripley's Game, Malkovich fine tunes his Ripley into a cynical, cultured, and arrogant creature, who is equally at ease with his European upper-class neighbors as he is with thieves and killers like Ray Winstone's Reeves. We're introduced to Tom killing the bodyguard of a client in a controlled fit of rage for insulting him during a business deal. This lets us know that it's important not to offend Tom's sense of social correctness. Clearly, Jonathan Trevanny, (played by Dougray Scott), a local craftsman, didn't get this message as Ripley overhears him questioning his taste in home renovation during a party. Malkovich's Ripley is a keen observer of the human condition, not only for the knowledge that he might gain and use at some later date, but also for his own private amusement. His disdainful snobbery isolates him from the rest of humanity, including his own languidly gorgeous wife, who we suspect loves him more for his tales than his talents.Ripley's Game examines what happens to Tom as he executes his revenge upon Jonathan, in the midst of his carefully constructed world of confessional sex games, mob drive-bys, and elegant surroundings. Along the way, we're treated to a more well-developed paradox, known as Tom Ripley, who always keeps us watching.

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.