Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Lawbolisted Powerful

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Christopher Longoria A quiet man who has a vary rare blood disease and is an expert in a certain painters oil paintings for a auction house. He owns and works in a frame shop gets involved with a man he despises, a collector who sells paintings. The quiet man moves from a stable life to a life of excitement and danger. Directed by Wim Wenders a movie that is exciting and brilliant. Bruno Ganz and Dennis Hopper are excellent together. This CANNES Film Festival Selection of 1977. This psychological thriller is equal to Alfred Hitchcock and Samuel Fuller and is gripping.

Alex-Tsander I will admit that I watched this film having previously, repeatedly, watched and loved the later "Ripleys Game" with John Malkovitch as the eponymous eminence gris. So I cannot consider the Wenders version without comparison. Really though there is no comparison.I am staggered at how Wenders fans at this site seem to be preoccupied by the directors brilliance...as indicated in other work.I prefer to try to see what is before me. It isn't impressive.Compared to the Malkovitch rendition, Hopper is utterly unbelievable. Malkovitch is the cool, manipulative, patrician sophisticate and sociopath that fits Ripleys form. When he talks art we believe it. Hopper is just a bumbling joke. In no sense can we believe the proposition that such a flake could succeed as a player in the world of fine art dealing. He wouldn't get through the door. Ray Winstones clubland villain in Ripleys Game is totally believable. The French guy in this movie is just a vacant nothing, the echo of a fart that Winstone might deposit in passing. The American gangland henchmen are utterly ridiculous. They don't have a muscle between them and are as menacing as a tea lady. The fight scenes are a pathetic joke, reminiscent of something out of a Sixties spy spoof, one tap on the head and a guys dead. Yeah! The movie is padded out with empty scenes that serve no discernible function, such as Hopper playing with a polaroid camera. One senses Wenders trying to create "iconic" images, Ganz leaning bout of a train cab screaming...but they just don't work. How the heck would he gain access to the train cab anyway? The whole thing is amateurish, pretentious and glib. Nothing has substance. Its badly edited. Sloppily shot. Inconsistently lit. The music is dire and doesn't segue properly with the cuts of each scene.Ganz is superb, but Hoppers "performance" undermines that. He looks like he thinks the film is some funny foreign farce that he will take part in just for the fee but indicates his disrespect via various tells in expression amounting to a suggestion that he is playing "tongue in cheek" yet flatly without irony. I greatly enjoy him in other movies, even B-movies, but in this he was embarrassing to watch.I suspect that most of the high scorers here would agree with at least some of my opinions had they seen the movie without knowing its author.

Tom Gooderson-A'Court Loosely based on the novel Ripley's Game and made by German Director Wim Wenders under the title Der amerikanische Freund the film stars Bruno Ganz (Downfall, Unknown) as Jonathan, a picture framer with a terminal blood disease. Jonathan meets a wealthy American Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper) who deals in art forgery. Jonathan, knowing what Tom does wants nothing to do with the American and initially refuses to shake his hand. Later, Tom is approached by a French criminal named Raoul (Gerard Blain) who asks Tom if he is willing to commit a murder against a rival gangster. Tom refuses but suggests Jonathan as he has no connections and may be willing to do the job for money so that he has something to leave his wife (Lisa Kreuzer) and young son after his imminent death. Jonathan reluctantly agrees after being manipulated by the criminals but his actions set him and Tom on a path towards destruction.The plot was often incomprehensible and was wildly improbable but this was almost forgotten due to the enormous amount of tension and intrigue. The plot takes a back seat in a way, in favour of creating the emotions and apprehension surrounding it. I found it unlikely, even for a dying man, that Jonathan would go along to Paris and kill someone for some gangsters who he didn't know and the final third made no sense whatsoever but the rest of the film though was delightful.The two central relationships in the film felt heartfelt and real. Lisa Kreuzer was excellent as Jonathan's concerned wife. It was obvious that she cared a great deal for her husband but wasn't going to put up with lies and deceit. The fact that Jonathan was willing to travel Europe as a hired assassin in order to provide for his family after his death showed that the feelings worked both ways. The second relationship between Tom and Jonathan changed several times during the film. Beginning with distrust and hostility then towards feelings of mutual respect and admiration and back again, their relationship twists and turns throughout. You always have the feeling though that Jonathan is being taken advantage of, even when it appears that he is not. The characters were all well drawn and the relationships were rich. Jonathan and Tom's buddy relationship was often strange but always satisfying.One of the things I liked about the film was its setting, Hamburg. Jonathan and his family live near the docks or the German city and the streets reminded me of New York in Taxi Driver. They were sort of run down and forgotten but with obvious vibrancy. Much of the city was still flattened by the bombs of thirty years before and this added to the feeling of desolation and waste. The film was also shot on location in Paris and New York, something unusual for the time outside a Bond Film or something similar. I also really enjoyed how the film slipped between English and German in such an effortless way. It was barely noticeable and added realism.The acting was superb throughout. It is such a shame that Bruno Ganz is best known for saying silly things on YouTube as he is a fantastic actor with over fifty years experience behind him. Dennis Hopper was really cool as the American abroad and was excellent in the role and as I've already mentioned Wenders regular Lisa Kreuzer was also brilliant. The fact that all three actors performed in two languages just adds to their excellence.www.attheback.blogspot.com

Michael Neumann It's difficult to tell if this multi-national thriller is meant to be taken seriously; at times it seems less an attempt at genuine suspense than subtle mockery of commercial movie-making formulas (the title itself carries a hint of satire). Adapting Patricia Highsmith's novel 'Ripley's Game' for the big screen, Wim Wenders grafts his patented Euro-road film style to a convoluted crime drama concerning a Hamburg artist (Bruno Ganz) with a rare blood disease, persuaded by one gangster to murder another. The scenario is consistently interesting if more than a little vague, with the plot hinging on Ganz's willingness to trust an obviously dishonest stranger when told that his disease is fatal, even after his own doctor reassures him otherwise. Hitchcock it isn't, but Wenders' moody urban angst gives way to moments of tension (and weird black humor) during the caper itself.