Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Steve Kong
Review by Steve Kong
The Hard Boiled Movie Guide
http://boiledmovies.sbay.com/
Why did everyone love The Talented Mr. Ripley? I can't understand. Simply
put up front, I hated The Talented Mr. Ripley. I thought it was a bore and
it was nothing special.
Mr. Ripley is Tom Ripley (Matt Damon). Ripley is a loser who would rather
be a fake somebody than a real nobody. Ripley is also a good impersonator
and is a gifted liar. As the film opens Ripley meets the parents of Dickie
Greenleaf (Jude Law). Dickie's father asks Ripley if he would like to go
to Italy to get his son Dickie to return to the states. It seems that
Dickie has been living off his father's money in Italy with his girlfriend
Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) and has no plans on returning. Well, Ripley finds
someone he really wants to be, Dickie. Dickie is outgoing, personably, and
extroverted. Everything Ripley wants. And a plus is that Dickie's
girlfriend is not bad either.
I can see how The Talented Mr. Ripley can be an interesting film on someone
taking someone else identity. But, writer/director Anthony Minghella does
it in such a way that I was looking at my watch multiple times during the
film, I even got up once to look at the DVD jacket to see what the running
time of the film was (a whopping 2 hours and 20 minutes if you're
curious). The sinker for the film isn't bad acting, the three main actors,
including Damon, are great. The sinker for the film is the pace. When the
murderous dark side of Ripley is shown, it is already past half the
film. The first half of the film is sheer boredom. The second half of the
film is sheer silliness. The Talented Mr. Ripley is not what everyone
says, it's not what the big critics say it is. This is not a great film,
it is rather a meandering snore fest with an ending that left me somewhat
upset that I sat through the whole film.
As I mentioned before, the actors all do wonderful jobs with their
parts. Damon shows that he really can act and takes the lead role and
injects some flair into it. Damon does well with the Mr. Ripley role as a
man who is truly confused with what he is and what he has done. Jude Law
whom I last saw in the terrible eXistenZ does better in this film (of
course anything is better then that gore-fest eXistenZ). Actually, Law
does quite well in the film portraying the spoiled boy who can only show
his affection to one person at a time. And Paltrow does very well as the
girlfriend who finds out more than she should have and which no one
believes. The actors in The Talented Mr. Ripley are great, too bad they
didn't have a better film to carry their talents to the audience.
Maybe I was being a bit brutal with The Talent Mr. Ripley by saying that I
hated it. I dislike the film a lot, but I can't give it a Skip, Skip, Skip
rating. The acting talents in the film are too much and if on the off
chance there is nothing of interest at the rental place, try out The
Talented Mr. Ripley if you're a patient person and would like to see some
good acting. Else, try as hard as you can to find something else to watch,
there are lots of movies out there that better entertain you for 2 hours
and 20 minutes than this silly film.
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