Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't Put a Foot Wrong, a Model of Great Story Telling.
Review: "The Talented Mr Ripley" should be Required Viewing for Film Students on How to Correctly Develop Characters, Story and Suspense without resorting to Tired Plot Twists or Cheap Thrills. This Leisurely Paced Thriller doesn't waste a second, every Shot, every Gesture, every Line of Dialogue is there to show us something. It really is a Perfect Thriller, by all standards.Each Character is so well developed, I found myself Rooting for Everybody. There wasn't one character that I wanted fare to come to; even Ripley had me felling sorry for him. Matt Damon plays the part of Tom Ripley with such enthusiasm and Seasoned Skills, he proves he is the Naturally Brilliant Actor we Thought he'd be twenty years down the track. He is totally in the character at all times, and so believable it is Scary. He brings every thought and emotion to his face and he never once Over or Underplays Ripley, his Casting was Genius. Gwyneth Paltrow gives the Performance of her Career as Marge, Dickie's Girlfriend. She plays her as Spirited, Happy and Full of Life for the First half, and as Bitter, Untrusting and Aged for the Finale. She Proves herself a real, wonderful actress, with all the Grace and beauty of Grace Kelly. Alot of Critics and Audiences felt that Jude Law stole the show as Dickie Greenleaf, the man of Ripleys Obsession. As far as This Reviewer is Concerned, Matt Damon is the star all the way, though Jude plays a Good Second Fiddle. He Too gives the Performance of his Young Career. PT Anderson favourites Philip Seymour Hoffman and Philip Baker Hall appear in the truly Magnolia... (an Intended Mistake) Magnificent Supporting Cast. They are Both Outshined by Cate Blanchett and Jack Davenport as two people caught in Ripleys Web of Deception. I really fell that had Censorship been less strict in his time, Alfred Hitchcock would have made "Strangers on a Train" more like this Modern Ripley tale. The Homosexual Undertones would have been brought out of the closet more and the characters more Honest. I can picture the Masters take on this tale. Anthony Perkins as Ripley, Cary Grant as Dickie and (of course) Grace Kelly as Marge. "The Talented Mr Ripley" is a Perfect Thriller. It doesn't cheat the audience in any way, as many modern thrillers do. Performance, Direction, Plot, Sets, Make Up, Music... It's Faultless in Every Field. After all the acclaim I and others have given it, it is Still Underrated.
Rating: 
Summary: 2nd Slowest Movie Of All Time
Review: This movie never goes anywhere for about the first 90 minutes. You get to see conversations between snooty rich white people and pasty Matt Damon about wine cellars. Whee! I swear, only a millionaire would know what they're talking about. The film moves as fast as an old man in the 1984 Buick hogging both lanes of the road. Near the end of the movie, you won't care what's going on. Oh by the way, I absolutely LOVED the predictable ending. It really fooled me! Don't watch unless you need a cure for Insomnia.
Rating:
Summary: Total Torture
Review: I cannot express how horrible this movie was! Not only do you have to stare at Matt Damon's face for over two hours, but it also burns in your mind as you are knodding off while watching this bore. The movie was dragged out, with every cheap attempt to throw twists and turns that were completely not needed. The only bright spot was the acting of Jude Law, who is absent in almost the whole last 1/4 of the movie. Matt Damon and Gweneth Paltrow both over-act unbearingly. If I wanted to torture my worst enemy, I would tie them up, and force them to watch this unbelievable trash!
Rating:
Summary: It has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen!
Review: If you like a movie which has no story line and drags on for ages then this is the film for you. Honestly I have to say it was the longest 2 and half hours i have spent watching a film. All it is about is a young boy who wants to be something he's not. He will willingly kill to get what he wants and thats about it. Exciting? no way!
Rating:
Summary: The Narcissist in Action
Review: "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is an Hitchcockian and blood-curdling study of the psychopath and his victims. At the centre of this masterpiece, set in the exquisitely decadent scapes of Italy, is a titanic encounter between Ripley, the aforementioned psychopath protagonist and young Greenleaf, a consummate narcissist. But perhaps the most intriguing portraits are those of the victims. Marge insists, in the face of the most callous and abusive behaviour, that there is something "tender" in Greenleaf Jr. When she confronts the beguiling monster, Ripley, she encounters the fate of all victims of psychopaths: disbelief, pity and ridicule. The truth is too horrible to contemplate, let alone comprehend. Psychopaths are inhuman in the most profound sense of this compounded word. Their emotions and conscience have been amputated and replaced by phantom imitations. But it is rare to pierce their meticulously crafted facade. They more often than not go on to great success and social acceptance while their detractors are relegated to the fringes of society. Both Meredith and Peter, who had the misfortune of falling in deep, unrequited love with Ripley, are punished. One by losing his life, the other by losing Ripley time and again, mysteriously, capriciously, cruelly. Thus, ultimately, the film is an intricate study of the pernicious ways of psychopathology. Mental disorder is a venom not confined to its source. It spreads and affects its environment in a myriad surreptitiously subtle forms. It is a hydra, growing one hundred heads where one was severed. Its victims writhe and as abuse is piled upon trauma - they turn to stone, the mute witnesses of horror, the stalactites and stalagmites of pain untold and unrecountable. For their tormentors are often as talented as Mr. Ripley is and they are as helpless and as clueless as his victims are. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".
Rating: 
Summary: The Talented Mr. Ripley
Review: It's as suffocating as it is breathtaking. The direction is tight and enchanting; it's as if Minghella were filming each shot to make up an artsy slide show about his vacation to Italy. Damon plays a psychotic so realistically that he forgets he's an actor playing a part... It's almost too convincing, and there's no room in the script to compensate for it. It's not a bad movie, it can't possibly be -- everything is handled so meticulously and obsessively that it would score perfectly on an aesthetics exam -- but it ends of draining the film of some of it's mystery. Jude Law, Phillip-Seymore Hoffman, and Gwyneth Paltrow all give the performance of their careers. And pay close attention to the scenes inside a night club, it's a true triumph in contemporary cinema.
Rating:
Summary: A Modern Classic
Review: When young Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) is casually mistaken for being an alumnus of Princeton, he is sent on a mission to retrieve Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), the son of an influential New York tycoon, from his extended sojourn in Italy. The promise of cash in hand and the inscrutable allure of the Mediterranean immediately seduce Tom, who is struggling to pay his bills in various jobs. But Tom is not all he seems: multi-talented and gifted with a frightening ability to mimic other people's voices, he arrives in Italy, having carefully crafted a plan to ingratiate himself in the company of Dickie and his fiancee, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). In particular, Tom appeals to Dickie's ecstatic love of jazz. Together, they form a bond that is seemingly fraternal, yet incipiently homoerotic. It would be a shame to ruin the film by going on with the admittedly thin plot. Suffice to say that the increasingly unwieldy relationship between Tom and Dickie quickly embroils Tom in a spiralling pattern of murder and lies. What is amazing is that Tom and Dickie's relationship resonates throughout 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' yet is never made explicit. People will either love or hate this film. That's fine. One thing is certain: once 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' was denied by the Academy Awards, its subtle multiple layers were condemned to oblivion by the majority of filmgoers. Like Tom himself, this powerful, endlessly beguiling film is not all it seems: it's not an action movie. Nor is it a mystery thriller, for we always know who the killer is. The film derives momentum not from a cracking narrative but from the complex poetic symbolism with which director Anthony Minghella imbues his tantalisingly lubricious images of the Italian coast. Just as the desert in Minghella's 'The English Patient' bespoke the sexual and emotional longing of its characters, Italy embodies the suppressed, turbulent raptures of this film's equally tortured characters. Italy is not all it seems, either: bodies are constantly being turned up, by land and by sea. More Sophocles than Hitchcock, the film charts the vagaries of Tom's Italian tour to what seems like his inevitable downfall. Boasting a gorgeous jazz and orchestral score and wonderfully three-dimensional performances by Matt Damon, who plays Tom as an awkward youth constantly being surprised by the clamorings of his inner desires; Jude Law, who is astonishing as the petulant and intemperate Dickie; Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Tom's camp rival for Dickie's affections) and Cate Blanchett (as a spoilt, delightfully ditsy daughter of an American textiles-company owner), 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' makes you think long after you've left the theatre (or the lounge room). Above all, it's a film about identity: for as Tom discovers, no matter who you pretend to be, or say you are, you are nothing without a strong sense of self. Here's the final secret of 'The Talented Mr. Ripley': this modern tragedy is a modern classic.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Thriller
Review: This film is an all around must see, for the beautiful cinematography alone.... Paltrow and Damon are really good and Jude Law deliciously bitchy and bad. This film is a dark psychological thriller, and also black comedy. You will cringe and laugh and be freaked out by this strange film.
Rating:
Summary: Patricia Highsmith's Ripley was less Believe It or Not!
Review: Anthony Minghella the writer-director has done a slight rewrite on Patricia Highsmith's the Talented Mr. Ripley. The Ripley of Minghella is a nerd, not in the same league with Dickie, the young man young Ripley has been sent to persuade to come home. Dickie wants to become a jazz musician. He is having a high old time just laying about in sunny Italy. Tom Ripley likes what he sees. Dickie's father believes Tom went to Princeton with his son, though Tom went to no college at all and is simply a slightly classy looking waiter. As I said, Minghella's Tom is at odds with Highsmith's Ripley. Highsmith's Ripley is as flamboyant as Dickie is. Highsmith's Ripley is as cute and obviously upper class as Dickie. Minghella's character, played by Mark Damon, can do no soft shoe that even comes close to what Dickie does. Highsmith's Ripley is brimming with a boffo confidence that is really quite close to blundering. Minghella's Ripley could put tape on the glasses Highsmith would not even let the character wear. Minghella has created such a reluctant dweeb that the Highsmith story is seriously undermined. The idea is for Tom Ripley to replace Dickie and live his life. Minghella's Tom Ripley cannot possibly replace the splendid and aristocratic Dickie played by Jude Law. The film is far too long. Dickie's girlfriend, played by the beautiful Gwynneth Paltrow, sort of stands around and does very little. Kate Blanchett, as another heiress on the continent who mistakes Ripley's true identity, is a little better, but Minghella uses her character to make the Highsmith novel more complex than it need be. At the end, moviegoers are left wondering why Ripley keeps putting himself through all these conniptions since further attempts at fooling people about who he is, only tempts fate. It also doesn't seem the sort of thing the halting character played by Damon would do. The minute this guy gets money in his bank account, he would count his lucky stars and stop fooling around. The Talented Mr. Ripley is a classy looking film, almost as classy as the Director's earlier English Patient. But this story is not quite the vehicle for this kind of classic treatment. Minghella has toyed with the story and damaged it. He would have been better to just film the story as Patricia Highsmith wrote it. We find Ripley aboard ship in a bedroom at the end, trying to figure out what his next move is. We know this Ripley would never have taken chances like this. Minghella has left his hero up a creek without a paddle, and even the audience can't really see a way out for him. Minghella, you should have ended it twenty minutes earlier while you were still ahead.
Rating:
Summary: A Mixed Bag
Review: I found THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY to truly be a mixed bag. Whether intentially or unintentially, it was almost a case study in what used to be called (and still may be) a sociopathic personality. Damon's character fits that mold in that he is able to commit murder without seeming to feel any pangs of conscience. The movie also works as a bit of an expose of the life of the idle rich, or what we would call "jet-setters." It also works as a showpiece of some of the more glorious scenery in Italy. Where it fell down for me was in the reality area. It doesn't seem possible that with the number of people Dickie knew that our "talented" protagonist could get away with the identity deception for any length of time. I also couldn't get attached to any of the characters from an emotional standpoint. There was no one there for me to really care about. To summarize: The positive side: For me, it was good as a psychological study, a life style portrayal, and included beautiful well photographed scenery, The negative side: In my opinion, it was not so hot from the standpoint of a reality check and for emotional impact i.e., I really didn't care too much about any of the main characters. Thus, a mixed bag.
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