Review of Ripley's Game (2002) by Alison O — 17 Mar 2004

Best in Show: John Malkovich.

One for the future: Dougray Scott (drops the Scots accent for a cutglass English one).

Brainer or no-brainer: Brainer.

Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: Repeated.

DVD commentary any good?: n/a.

DVD.

Picking up the baton from Matt Damon who played Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr Ripley, John Malkovich is as effortlessly creepy as is necessary in this sequel to the Minghella classic. Whereas the Ripley of the Dickie Greenleaf years was twitchy and racked with guilt, enforcably lurching from one unplanned murder to the next, here in his later years he is depicted as cooly self-assured and in control. When Dougray Scott, an ex pat Englishman with terminal leukaemia living in Italy with his wife (Lena Headley) makes disparaging comments about his near neighbour Ripley at a party he crosses swords with the wrong man. Ripley sets him up with a former aquaintance Reeves (Ray Winstone) to embroil him in a murder of an associate of Reeves. He proceeds to make a game of toying with his sick neighbour; intimating that he knows the details of his murderous antics and then embroiling him in further killings aboard a train, in which Ripley himself participates. Events spiral out of control when one of their victims survives and tails the duo back to their home town through Reeves with extra manpower in tow. A joint UK-Italian production this exhudes the sensibilities of a European film and as such provides a fantastic antidote to the paint-by-numbers thrillers churned out by the US. Further Ripley adventures will follow with, I hope, Malkovich firmly ensconsed in the lead role.