Rating: 
Summary: Wasted Talent
Review: I'm usually a fan of Matt Damon's, but this movie goes beyond his ability to help. This movie has nothing enjoyable in it. It is just a closet manic-depressive bordering on psychotic committing crimes of necessity to continually cover up his crime of passion. At no point does the movie throw any real twists or interest in. I suppose it is somewhat of a decent commentary on how even a seemingly normal person can become a monstrosity of conscience, but as that it is well beyond my generous capability to enjoy.Read Crime and Punishment if you want a story that really explores the depths of the dark side of human nature. I didn't enjoy that one either, but at least it was intelligent. This just gives you the darkness without the psychological exploration.
Rating: 
Summary: Sophisticated Thriller
Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley is about reinventing one's self, that oldest of American dreams. A shimmering thriller with more on its mind than just whether psychopathic Ripley will get away with murder, the film is based on Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel. Director-adapter Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) displays a finely tuned appreciation for character and style, not to mention the influences of Hitchcock and writers F. Scott Fitzgerald and Theodore Dreiser. Tom Ripley has committed that gravest of sins against the rich: He has ceased to amuse. "You can be quite boring," wealthy American expatriate Dickie Greenleaf (Law) tells Ripley (Damon) dismissively, not fully aware of how desperately besotted Ripley has become with both Dickie and his sybaritic lifestyle in late-1950s Italy. Ripley will not be discarded so easily. Instead he will get rid of Dickie and attempt to become him. Ripley's second half goes a little limp as plot mechanics clank, but the movie is fascinating, helped enormously by dazzling performances by both Damon and Law and a thoughtful one by Paltrow as Dickie's girlfriend. Richly textural psychological thriller.
Rating:
Summary: More than meets the Eye
Review: This movie caught alot of flack from critics. I thought it was an entertaining film noir. This dark adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's even darker novel is full of plot twist that just get more and more bizarre. Anthony Minghella (director of the English Patient)uses volumes of style which when combined with the emmense substance of the story creates an all around good thriller.
Rating: 
Summary: Anthoney Mingalla's follow up to ENGLISH PATIENT delivers...
Review: 'It's better to be a fake someone, than a real no one" are the unforgetable words of Thomas Ripley, a deranged pianist who dreams of fame and glory. Tom dreams soon become reality, when he gets that chance of a life time. At a high class party, he is approached by Dick Greebnleaf, a wealthy oil company owner, who gets Tom to agree to coax his son Dickie to come back to America. When Tom and Dickie take a natural bonding to each other, the volatile Dickie merely uses him like he does many other people. However, this time Dickie gets in more deep than he plans. You can't just hurt Tom Ripley that way, and get away with it... When you watch the Talented Mr. Ripley, it puts an eerie affect on you that most psychological movies lack. It tends to disturb the audience rather than make them feel warm and happy. I strongly suggest the easily disturbed stay clear of this. The Talented Mr. Ripley, covers the social issues of a strange age in time. You have such a hard time finding decent people. The only people who seem kind and you would want to be friends with are the gays in it. (Which caused some controversy). The film overall is brilliant and worth buying. You won't regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Dearth in Venice
Review: Patricia Highsmith's novel, on which this film is based, is a tightly woven thriller, with no plot holes and a high level of suspense -- which is what makes it all the more inexcusable that the film's director,Anthony Minghella, chose to rework and replot the narrative until it alternates between the nonsensical and the preposterous. (For those who have never read the book : the Cate Blanchett character, Meredith, doesn't exist in the novel, and the composer with whom Ripley eventually takes up is mentioned (once) but is never seen. Whole episodes, such as the girl in Mongibello who drowns herself over Dickie, are Minghella's additions).Highsmith's Ripley is a consummate games-player right from the beginning, who would NEVER have allowed Mr. Greenleaf's chauffeur to pick him up at his dump of an apartment, thereby running the risk of exposing his story about being a success.My personal bete noire in this film is the murder of Dickie.Highsmith's character murders in cold blood, having already decided to steal his identity; Minghella's swings at him in anger; tries to apologize; then has to kill in self-defense, when Dickie lunges at him.(The scene immediately thereafter, where Ripley cradles Dickie in his arms, weeping over his foul deed, would surely have had Highsmith roaring obscenities).Also, when I saw the film in the theater, NO ONE could make head or tails of why Ripley kills his composer/lover at the end.Meredith is now the only person left who knows Ripley as Dickie; and it is clear that Ripley can't possibly go on pretending to be Dickie without being exposed, since Dickie is now universally believed to be dead.So why isn't Meredith the one he kills? This is especially pertinent since the film's theme (NOT Highsmith's), such as it is, is that Ripley is essentially nothing more than a Boy Who Wants To Be Loved; yet now he kills a first-rate man who genuinely loves him.I should add that the film's Italian location shooting is GORGEOUS, to the point that you will want to leave the theater and call your travel agent to book you on the next flight to Ischia (the stand-in for Mongibello). The cast is also splendid (with Philip Seymour Hoffman particularly good; the kind of officious bore that we have all met at parties, and who should probably be murdered just on general principle.)Unfortunately, in a thriller (as the master, Hitchcock, knew so well), it is the script that decides whether the whole business sinks or swims. Like Dickie's boat, the verdict here must be "Glug-glug".
Rating:
Summary: Darn, do I have to give it even 1 star?
Review: This movie was about the dumbest thing I've sat thru in years. Keep your change! The only good thing was the beautiful scenery. The story was boring and zzzzzzzz and ridiculous.
Rating:
Summary: THE LUCKY DOG NEWSLETTER
Review: ...I think is the word your searching for. EVIL Plain and simple, I didnt just not like the movie (it was kinda cool in a suspense type of way, but the suspense never goes anywhere and the body count just keeps rising...) I didnt like the novel either (and it looks to me like the movie sorta slaughtered the novel and ruined it). Reasons for the Rating: Male Nudity, blood'n'gore, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, language, terror and suspense, sexuality, certain sexual preference innuendos, murder, harsh violence, and a scene of suicide. The Plot: Thomas Ripley (Matt Damen, "The Legend of Bagger Vance")is a noname childlike young man who has noone to love him or to take care of him, instead he has a WIERD POWER to forge writing and mimick voices. He gets an offer to find someone he doesnt know but pretends to know and bring him back home, and when he goes the guy he finds tells him to stay for a while and live it up with him, because (IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE) he aint going home. When it comes down to it Mr. Ripley wants everything this guy has including the guy. It gets even worse from there and ultimately leads to death and destruction, which is without a doubt what evil always leads to. This is Acedog from THE LUCKYDOG NEWSLETTER:MOVIE REVIEW Have a chilling Holloween (by renting the classics).
Rating:
Summary: see and compare
Review: Have you seen the version of this film played by Alain Delon (in the role of Mr. Ripley)? Do and compare. Matt Damon may be good at plain tear jerkers, but he is incapable of playing a psychologically multilayered character.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: One of the worst movies- EVER. The first 30-60 minutes is decent, but from there on out, it just plain stunk. The plot if pretty much predicable and towards the end it's as implausible as the end of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. My suggestion is to leave after the first hour. If not, you're in for a long, boring rest of the movie, which you could take a nap during and not miss much.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice Try, But it's No Highsmith
Review: Adapted from the chilling novel by Patricia Highsmith, this pleasantly picturesque thriller just can't seem to work up any real thrills. Still, there are more then a few striking performances on hand, including a major star-turn from Jude Law, who's rich, spoiled, Dickie, gives this otherwise placid movie whatever electric charge it has. The director, Anthony Minghella, has given Highsmith's story a truly misguided, "politically correct" overall: in the novel, Ripley is an amoral killer who will have sex with anyone or anything in order to satisfy his hunger for riches; but in the film, Matt Damon's Ripley is a somewhat wistful and closeted homosexual who's murders almost always seem defensive. It doesn't make much sense, and it's probably the only reason that the otherwise gifted Matt Damon seems to founder. The movie is sumptuous too look at, and for the first hour, at least, this is agreeably diverting moviemaking.
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