Best movie ever!

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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.

This movie is more evidence that you're usually better off leaving things alone. The Talented Mr. Ripley was a complex and engrossing tale of an empty young man trying to fill himself and the terrible consequences of that for him and everyone around him. Ripley's Game is a boring and pedestrian "thriller" with an underdeveloped supporting cast and a main character that's lost everything that was interesting about him.Set several decades after the first film, Tom Ripley (John Malkovich) is now a man in middle age. He's rich, has a hot young girlfriend who's accepting of his sociopathic nature and after a lifetime of violence and scheming that's left him with a dubious reputation amongst normal people, Tom seems content and settled in the world. Then an old associate from his criminal past, the crude and bold Reeves (Ray Winstone), asks Tom for his help. Reeves needs some men killed without getting himself implicated. Tom demurs, but decides to see if he can manipulate a local picture-framer into becoming Reeve's assassin. Partly because he thinks the man has it in him. Partly because the man was rude to him at a party. But mostly for Tom's amusement.The picture-framer Jonathan Trevanny (Dougray Scott) has leukemia and after some frankly muddled and uninspired dithering, decides to take Reeve's offer to earn some money for his family. But after helping Jonathan into the darkness, Tom decides he wants to lead him back into the light and pull him out of the world of contract killings. That proves to be more difficult than expected and Tom will have to use all his talents to survive.Ripley's Game is prettily directed by Liliana Cavani and a scene where three people get killed on a train along with a few other brief moments of violence have a raw energy that is absent from everything else in the movie. These characters and situations are shallowly written and there are at least three different occasions when something that makes no sense has to happen in order for the plot to get from one point to another. Once, the film even references that a plot point doesn't make sense and tells the viewer to stop thinking about it. The relationship between Tom and Reeves defies explanation. Jonathan's transformation into a murderer is left completely unexplored except for a 4 minute scene in a public toilet that tries to cover about 45 minutes of character development. The threat Tom and Jonathan face at the end of the story is largely anonymous drones representing an undefined enemy.The worst part of Ripley's Game is that it takes the fascinating and compelling character of Tom Ripley and neuters him. What made him so engaging in the first film was seeing the inner turmoil that drove all of Tom's evil acts and the contrast between Ripley's abnormality and the normal people around him. Middle aged Tom is perfectly at peace with himself and spends a great deal of time consorting with other deviant folks. Shorn of his weaknesses and robbed of distinctiveness, Tom Ripley becomes just another overly written character that functions more as a plot device than a real person.Tom Ripley is a bit like Hannibal Lecter in this respect. When Lecter is imprisoned, it's possible to admire, appreciate and even like him in spite of his evil nature. When Hannibal is set loose and is out and about in the world, you're confronted by how ridiculously, cartoonishly unrealistic the character is. Trapped in his cell, those larger-than-life attributes are implied depths. When he's free, those capacities are revealed in all their melodramatic splendor and you can't take the character as seriously. When you free Tom Ripley from his need to be with other people and his inability to make that work, he becomes a soulless mechanism instead of a relateable human being. It's not John Malkovich's fault that this Tom Ripley is so unengaging. He's just not given the same tools to work with as Matt Damon in the first movie.Both The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley's Game are based on novels by Patricia Highsmith. I'm not sure if the flaws of this film reflect weaknesses in Highsmith's writing, but somewhere along the line someone forgot what makes Tom Ripley a worthwhile work of fiction. The more you loved the first movie, the more you need to shun this one.

John Malkovich plays the sort of character you wish him to play in all movies. A calm, collective, emotionless director of intensity and intelligence. He seems to have such a professional balance of effeminate attitude; contrasted to his very manly appeal. It's easy to say Malkovich is what really makes this film worth watching.Without John and imagining anyone else this movie would ride the fine line of a B-Listed movie, but with John coming out as an older, wiser, and hardened Tom Ripley the movie is instantly worth shelving in your collection. I wouldn't say it's a classic, but it's a classic Malkovich.The film basically takes place many years, probably decades and decades after the original: The Talented Mister Ripley and Ripley appears to be completely different. Complete evolved and trained in what sort of monster he had become. He lives in Europe living the high life as a black market art dealer and owns a beautiful plot of land with a mansion with a beautiful and talented wife to boot. A wife who even knows his business makes you realize how amazing Tom Ripley is. To be a thug-con artist and swing an amazingly talented wife at the same time.The plot starts rolling with Tom Ripley being publicly insulted at a neighbor's dinner party. The subject being that "he has no taste". Tom rolls with it and ignores it for the most part but tracks a laughable revenge by setting him up with a mobster who coerces him (the insulter of Ripley) to become a one time hit man.Things spiral out of control from there. Or at least out of control for everyone, but Ripley, who seems to just be calm, collective, and uncaring of all the events surrounding him. This film doesn't have the greatest cast or the best plot. It's not that that makes this film worth watching. It's the superior class Malkovich brings to the stage/film. If you like Malkovich and/or liked the original film, you will want to see this.

An excellent movie showing the talented Mr. Ripley late in the game. John Malkovich and Ray Winstone are excellent. Ripley is a narcissistic sociopath who has become well-to-do, maybe even wealthy, and he uses money to manipulate a dying man into committing a murder. It's an excellent script with excellent actors. Director Liliani Cavani weaves disparate scenes together, illuminating Ripley's dead, dark heart.I can't get over how good Malkovich is at showing affectless sociopaths. I recently watched the 1945 version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" with Hurd Hatfield as the titular villain. Hatfield's characterization was affectless also, but his face was just blank. Malkovich manages to project the soulless debauchery "Dorian Gray" was aiming for and failed to show. In one scene, Ripley watches the tormented Jonathon Trevanny (Dougray Scott) come to grips with what he has become; Ripley's issue is whether they'll make their plane. Malkovich manages to be considerate and totally heartless at the same time. It's a very impressive performance with powerful subtlety that few actors can bring off. And Malkovich does it through the whole movie."Ripley's Game" is not for everyone because the main character is not likable and has no "character development." He's almost the same when we leave him as when we first see him. At the end Ripley does seem to have some appreciation for Trevanny's moral character while having no appreciation at all for Trevanny's action. If you need to have a hero you can like, "Ripley's Game" is not for you. If you want to see a character study with a superb actor and excellent costars, you may find the movie rewarding.