IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

adamcarter-63372 This movie has all the ingredients to be a compelling movie. It has a great cast, good director, and the co-writer of The Bourne Identity. However, the movie doesn't explore it's themes and characters enough. It doesn't make full use of its interesting premise. The whole thing wasn't utilized. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) was a fascinating thriller/drama with a fascinating performance from Matt Damon and many compelling themes. Tom Ripley is a complex character and his books/films need depth. However, if you are able to get over that, this film is entertaining. Just don't expect anything great.

Thaneevuth Jankrajang This film is entertaining. Just imagine the character of Barry Pepper as someone else and not Ms. Patricia Highsmith's Thomas Ripley, you will be engrossed and not so disappointed. For me, I can't do that. I have already been impressed by both Matt Damon's and John Malkovich's Ripley, whose performances are so right one can't help feeling that they really play the same person at different ages, despite two completely different look and totally separate productions. I am not so sure who gets it wrong between Barry Pepper who plays him or Roger Spottiswoode the director. Thomas Ripley is not an accidental psychopath. He is a professional one who is completely conscious of all his actions and perfectly comfortable with them. He has excellent taste equipped with the vast knowledge of everything beyond his means, so he cheats, steals, and kills for such yearning. Tom Ripley never protests or acts against the mainstream. He simply has his own ways and means, and executes them rather effectively. Pepper's Ripley is not even close. His Ripley is boringly human, ordinary, and commonplace. He is supposed to be a genuinely evil spirit who lives well and excels among the sophistication of all kinds. Being an American does not stop him from being well-cultivated and subtle. Ripley's creator, Ms. Highsmith, was a big fan of him. She protested against people who made so much fuss about "a little murder" around them. See, Ripley is not a criminal but an artist of the most devious kind. This film does not get it. Furthermore, it is a poor choice of either the director or the script writer, or both, to apply comedic tone to this story. Ripley can be fun, but never comedic. Relief moments in Ripley's stories usually come with arts, good life, and stylishness. If your wish is to penetrate Mr. Ripley's mind, one of the most unique characters in the literary world, watch "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Ripley's Game" instead.

johannes2000-1 This was a decent and entertaining movie in its own right, although (like everyone here) it's hard not to compare it to other previous screen-adaptations of the Ripley stories. Among those there are very notable ones, like "The talented mister Ripley" with Matt Damon, "Plein Soleil" with Alan Delon and "The American Friend" with Dennis Hopper, all with very strong characterizations of Tom Ripley. And then there was the dreadful "Ripley's Game" with John Malkovitch. Well, this "Ripley Underground" stands somewhere in-between, depending on how you look at it. I'm a big fan of the novels of Patricia Highsmith. In the Ripley-series (5 novels) Tom Ripley is as charming as Highsmith's other (anti-)heroes, but he's also a psychopath in the "best" sense of the word: highly intelligent and totally void of any conscience. Highsmith loved to play with the possibilities that a character like this created: devious machinations, ingenious murders and cunning solutions when at times things seemed to turn awry. Another important feature is the unobtrusive way in which Ripley manages all his schemes: he's the quintessential boy-next-door whom no-one suspects of anything bad. Now when you want a scrupulous rendering of Highsmith's novel to the screen, this movie fails. The script did use the premise (the forgery of an already dead painter's work and how master-mind Ripley and his accomplices get away with it) but then gave it all kinds of twists and turns of its own. Also they used all the right names, but gave almost all the protagonists a different characterization from the ones in the novel. Now that is not necessarily bad. In the novel only Ripley himself and Bernard really stand out, the others are a bit bland. Obviously the makers of the movie wanted to give more color to the story and the characters and in this they succeeded. However, as to the Tom Ripley character I have some reservations. Here Tom can hardly be called an unobtrusive boy-next-door, he's actually a very sexy stunner (at many times he walks around shirtless to show-off his chiseled torso to prove so). Moreover he's pictured as an active and sensual lady's man, which the original Ripley is very much NOT, in fact there are countless homosexual innuendo's in all of the Ripley-novels (very convincingly captured in Minghella's "Talented Mr. Ripley"). Again, this doesn't have to make for a bad movie, but it makes you wonder why they should want to use the Highsmith-Ripley character at all, when they change its most essential aspects. Then they had better just used the (strong) premise and fill out the story with a bunch of new characters. Anyway, as a movie of its own right it's fine enough. Here Ripley is a very self-confident, ruthless and charming con-man who sets up a smart scheme of fraud and murder and wriggles his way into the bed and the wealth of a beautiful woman. The pace is fast, the movie has a very modern and metropolitan (London!) feel and besides action and suspense also lots of humor (which is definitely NOT Highsmithian, or it would be her macabre sense of dark humor). Maybe that could have used some better editing, at times it's almost too much of a comedy (like the scene where Tom has to clean the blood of two giant white poodles after a killing). The acting is overall very good, I especially liked Allan Cumming as the exasperated priggish gallery-owner, he's is really great and very funny in all of his scenes. Claire Forlani is beautiful, as is Jacinda Barrett as Heloïse. Wlliam Dafoe's name is prominently on the cover of the DVD, but he only has very limited screen-time and they didn't give him much to put his teeth in. Tom Wilkinson as the intelligent adversary of Tom Ripley did a fine job. Ian Hart was also fine as the misguided and abused Bernard, but I was so distracted by the idiotic hair-do they made him wear (a wig, I hope!) that it very much marred my enjoyment of his part. This leaves Barry Pepper as Tom Ripley. Now you wouldn't call him really handsome, but he has these remarkable features that are classical and rugged at the same time (an exciting combination!), he's charismatic, very physical, and plays the intelligent con-man with much flair and obvious fun. All in all: I liked it, not as a Highsmith, but as a fine and entertaining movie in its own right.

Kjartan Osmundsen I bought this, cheap on second hand DVD - and I didn't expect much. I had seen: "The talented Mr Ripley" and "Ripleys game" before - so I was a bit curious as to how this one would go down, because I haven't heard anything about it and that is usually a bad sign. - But.... I absolutely LOVED it. The plot was intriguing, and I loved the actors - and the ending - just perfect ! This is a movie I,m gonna watch again in a years time. At the end of this movie I actually raised my arms up and shouted: "Bloody hell!!! GREAT movie !!! There is also a bit of music in the middle of the movie when Tom goes to France I think for the first time - anyone know what music that is? Its beautiful.