Rating: 
Summary: it can drag slightly but great characters :)
Review: The only reason why I wanted to see this movie was because Jude Law was in it and I'm a big fan of his. But before seeing the movie, I've heard lots of negative things about and so I wasn't too open to liking the movie when I first saw it.It's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. My first impression of the movie was that it really dragged on. It seemed too long and moved too slowly for me. Or maybe I was just being impatient because I really wanted Mr. Ripley to get out of the country. But the more I think about the movie, the better I think it is with all its intricacies in character development. Personally, I thought the greatest weakness in the film was the dialogue. Although they were some wonderful comparisons and motifs (the dark basement without a key), many of the encounters came off as too direct and too unnatural. The odd comments of Mr. Ripley (whether they were intentional or not) of 'You love me so why don't you marry me' and 'Can I get into the bathtub?' just seemed really strange. Mr. Ripley always seeme dto have some homosexual tendencies but I really couldn't figure it out. The movie was capable of being horribly confusing. On the bright side, Jude Law and Matt Damon were brilliant :) Jude Law's character, Dickie Greenleaf was fairly simple. However, I'm reluctant to comment on Jude Law's performance since I'm extremely biaised on that matter :P As far as I'm concerned, I could absolutely see him as the carefree and inconsiderate person of Dickie Greenleaf. Matt Damon was equally brilliant in his role. And I absolutely loved the characterization of Mr. Ripley, the center of the story. I loved how he slowly becomes more and more obsessed with Dickie's lifestyle and how his crimes increase as his mental stability breaks down. The basement just gets darker and darker. The darker it gets, the harder it is to open. The secondary characters were decent. I found that most of them provided comical relief. Gwyneth Paltrow (why does she spell her name so unconventionally) was a bit melodramatic I find but her character was breaking down as well so I'll forgive her :). But I've never been a big fan of Gwyneth so ignore me on that comment :P As the title suggests, the movie centers around Mr. Ripley who is an intriguing and dynamic character. Despite the slow pace at times (relieved by a few comical characters), the movie provides decent entertainement and provokes plenty of food for thought :)
Rating:
Summary: Yes, he's the great pretender!
Review: Writer-director Anthony Minghella ("The English Patient") builds the suspense slowly and stealthily in his handsome adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's classic thriller. Set in the most picturesque parts of Italy during the late 1950s, the movie focuses on Tom Ripley (Matt Damon), a resourceful young American who's hired by a wealthy New York shipbuilder to bring the older man's playboy son (Jude Law) back to America. Unfortunately, the son doesn't want to go home. Even more unfortunately, neither does Ripley. As an ingratiating nobody who becomes dangerously addicted to lifestyles of the rich and fatuous, Damon somehow manages to remain sympathetic even when he behaves like a sociopath. Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett make the most of secondary roles, while Jude Law ("Gattica," "Wilde") makes a serious bid for stardom with his breakthrough performance as a fatally careless voluptuary.
Rating: 
Summary: The Ugly Americans?
Review: Maybe one of the dominant themes in this film is: who is preying upon whom? No film is made without a message...or several messages... attached to it. Some of these are overt...some are hidden... some are intended...some creep out because the film is made in a cultural context or time period which themselves speak a message of attitudes and values... As an American viewer, one might be prone to look on Dickie and Marge as living the "good life" (though the word "good" certainly would take on ironic and sardonic colorings if used in connection with any sense of values or ethics...) ...and Tom Ripley would seem to be the unwanted, predatory, disruptive, and destructive element which brings havoc into the "sweet life" arena... But Marge has already caught onto Dickie's ways and means...her frank sharing with Tom aboard the boat about how Dickie "picks people up," amuses himself with their novelty, makes them feel so special while his attention is on them, and then drops them when they no longer interest or amuse him...is a devastating insight...especially when it comes from the lips of someone who believes she loves him... So all is not well in the American compound...on Italy's sunny shores... We should, however, think of ourselves -- as a country and as a people -- as we might be viewed through the eyes of others.. in the world...not from the self-defending, close-minded idea that "Ah, they're just jealous that they're not us... don't have what we have...aren't rich and 'free' to live lives of pleasure and eating and drinking..." The question is, amid all the beautiful scenery and the chance to understand another culture...with its history and art and values, how much are these rich (but only because of Daddy's money, of course, not because of any work or ingenuity they have used to create their own wealth)Americans impacting this culture and society into which they have intruded themselves?...of course, it must be faulted that the society around them is all too eager to soak up their dollars... And what culture and knowledge and values are the Americans bringing into their foreign surroundings to share with the natives there? Ironically, it is only Tom Ripley who has any sense of the beauty and art around him...we see him wandering around by himself in Rome, while Dickie and Frankie spend their time sealed inside music listening booths listening to jazz recordings...Tom, by himself...alone...is wandering to see the remains of monumental statues of Italy's Roman past...and then sitting in the beauty of an evening sunset looking down on the remains of the Roman Forum... only he, of the group, seems to have any sense of art or beauty... It is at this point that one might begin to think about the director of the film...of his perspective...of his sense of life and meaning...and values... What messages, either overt or hidden, is the director putting into his film about the times and the people he is making his film about? What do the Americans in this film bring into the foreign setting? What is their effect on the surrounding culture and people? Is it beneficial and contributive and positive... or is it parasitic, predatory, and negative? In Henry James' novels, one might get the idea that it is naive Americans coming to wily, decadent, predatory Europe who might receive a revelation from their experience... but in this turn-around point of view, it is the callous, cynical Americans lounging and hunching around the beaches and waters of sunny Italy...buying or renting villas...carrying on destructive affairs with the locals...throwing money around to buy...and supposedly create a sense of their own importance...who, unfortunately, may bring the sad revelations to anyone who will see through their glitz and hedonism...
Rating:
Summary: Your World, and welcome to it???
Review: Manipulation...Lies...Deceit...Callous Exploitation...treating people as expendable, throw-away objects to satisfy personal whims or desires...ah, yes...those things only happened in the "La Dolce Vita" days of the 1950s, right??? Right??? Should we get ourselves all bent out of shape in trying to figure out whether Tom Ripley is "likeable" or not...a better question, perhaps, would be: is the character believable, or not...given the nature of our times and the lack of values which prevail in most of the contemporary, hedonistic, pleasure-above-all culture...or do we blame slogans like "Have it YOUR way!" and "What YOU want is what you get!" for brain-washing people into fantasizing that they can manipulate life and people into any sort of configuration they choose if they have the money or the power or the celebrity or the cleverness to do it? Is there, indeed, a likeable character in this film?...maybe only the Marge figure...Dickie Greenleaf is certainly a self- centered, manipulative, callous, exploitive, self-indulgent, narcissistic vampire...feeding off one and all for his own pleasure...and sardonic amusement...his chum is even scummier and more abrasive, if a bit more insightful than Dickie... and the yappy American young woman is a fount of over-privileged, empty-headed, clingy whining... Which leaves Tom Ripley...so he is "poor"...but he is gifted... he plays a good piano...has an incredible gift for mimickry... has pretty good psychological understanding...of others...if not of himself...but his methods are definitely beyond any sort of rational justification...why does he kill Dickie?...supposedly because he loves Dickie...and Dickie mocks him and calls him a girl and tells him he is a bore...and a clinger...of course, Tom tells Dickie a thing or two about Dickie, which doesn't enlighten Dickie...only infuriates him...and thus, the confrontation...and the horror of that fury letting loose (....)Tom says some insightful things about himself...but one doesn't really know when he is being truthful...and when he is just rationalizing... and self-justifying...can he EVER be believed? ... On first viewing, I felt this might be an anti-homosexual tract playing on public fear and prejudice...and helping to fuel the idea that homsexuality is supposedly a mental illness...it is too bad that one of the underlying motivations should have to be stirred up like this...don't know what the original author's view on the topic was...but given the filmed representations of it in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" and now with this film, it seems to be a negative one... But subsequent viewings have caused me to lessen that idea because the film has deeper things to say about society in general...and the people influenced by it...whether they be "straight" or homosexual (is Dickie Greenleaf a representative of the best aspects of being "straight"...for that matter, who in the film is a positive role model for being "straight"...certainly not Dickie's father...nor Dickie...nor his friend...nor Dickie's secret Italian sex object...again, maybe only poor ineffectual, ever-true despite her insights about Dickie --Marge)...although, in "The English Patient," I found when I went back to check out this idea in relation to the director, that the British archaeologist who has an attraction to one of the male Arabs winds up wrecking the truck because of it...perhaps an insight into the director's bias about the topic? ...did he choose to film this work because he knew the author of the work shared a similar bias to his own in relation to his own...plus the fact that it is a socially provocative issue? ... The photography is incredibly beautiful...the clarity of the DVD version enhances it even more...the coloring is an integral part of the atmosphere...the music is also evocative and haunting...especially the song at the beginning of the film...singing of love...of love... The whole scene on the beach...when Tom first plots to "meet" Dickie and Marge...is taut with sensuality, attraction, irony, and "beauty is only skin-deep" implications...but then there is the whole thing of the attraction...and deception...of appearances... especially of good-looking appearances...when they "come on" as naive, "earnest," slightly inept... This film is deeper and more intriguing than it may at first appear...worth several viewings...it is one of those films like "What Lies Beneath" (what a wonderful punning title...could also have been the punning title for this film about Tom Ripley...what LIES, beneath...get it?... deceptions beneath the surface...)that never get old even with repeated viewings...
Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie If and ONLY if you like homo-erotica
Review: Scroll down the list of other reviews, another guy understood this movie and actually liked it because it is homo-erotica. The boat scene spelled it out so plainly- Ripley was on the bow, spread eagle, while Jude was delivering rhytmic thrusts from the motor, and the rhythm of the boat hitting the waves plainly spelled out THE NASTY. Anyone who doesn't get that scene doesn't understand movies, and should stick with watching Brady Bunch reruns. The problem is that right at the point when it's clear that Ripley is gay, he kills the guy in self defense, maybe, since Ripley whacked the guy pretty good with an oar to start things. So the first boyfriend is dead, and rather than play dumb, Ripley assumes the boyfriend's identity, so as to be rich. And then this awful claustrophobia descended upon me as this murderer went around evading capture. Then I "got" the movie- that the feeling of a homosexual who fears being "outed" is the same as a guy who could be captured and punished. How awful of a fear it must be to come close to being outed if you don't want to be outed. Fine, that's great, but then the movie continues on, and in his quest to not get caught, Ripley kills again, and again, and tries to kill Paltrow's character. Uh... this is not a goodguy anymore, you don't kill people so that your life can be more convenient, DUH! The final scene, in which Ripley escapes Italy with his boyfriend, might be the last, but a gal sees Ripley, and oh-he "HAS" to lie to her. WTF?!? And as a result he "HAS" to kill his boyfriend. That transformed the movie from an artistic mainstream message of "how horrible a fear, to be outed" to downright "people are tools, make them suffer" erotica for a handful of people. Fine, but why spend all that money and talent making a movie that only appeals to a small segment of the population? Nobody from Idaho to Ohio will "get" the snuff-nature of this film. A handful of other people who like shiny things will claim to like the movie, which if they don't understand the strong homosexual foundation of the film, how can their opinion possibly be of merit? The final insult to the intelligence is listening to the mindless director who claims that the movie could have been a musical with only a little bit of work (huh?) and his epipheny that he feels he did a successful job in keeping Ripley likeable, and the audience rooting for him, even after he has murdered. I guess this director doesn't appreciate the fact that murder is wrong, no people don't root for Ripley, and no the movie didn't come close to being a musical. Remember Dirty Harry, and the psychotic badguy that Harry tried to catch? Talented Mr Ripley is like watching Dirty Harry throught the eyes of the badguy, like you're rooting for HIM. Simply an awful movie, a total waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Awful! Just plain awful!
Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley starts off with tremendous potential and quickly plumetts into the bowls of the movie world. It seemed as though the writers were simply making things up to ad on as the movie went along. Even more shameful than the desperate attempt at a plot or consistent story line, was the unusually poor acting performances of Mr. Damon and Ms. Paltrow. The only redeaming feature of the movie is the wonderful performance of Jude Law, without which I would have vomitted on myself several time from the sheer pain of watching this film. Watch this movie ONLY if you wish to feel as though you were just robbed of a small piece of your life!
Rating:
Summary: Hmmm...
Review: Had the full six-pack but lacked the plastic thingy to hold it all together.
Rating:
Summary: Mistaken identity
Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley left me so uninvolved, it's almost impossible to review it. The film purports to be about social difference, class envy and the explosive consequences of repressing one's sexual impulses. It seemed to me bloated and dull, one of those flicks that wants to have it both ways: the director places attractive stars in picturesque settings to insure success at the box office and his own career advancement, and then claims to be addressing "complex" and even "painful" subjects. I smell the artistic opportunism of Hollywood. The Talented Mr. Ripley is neither fish nor fowl. It isn't well-paced and concise enough to work as a thriller; it doesn't possess the depth of a serious social or psychological analysis. It just sits there, self-important and hollow. Spontaneity in the film (such as it is) is provided by Jude Law as Greenleaf and Philip Seymour Hoffman as his snobbish, parasitical friend. With everyone else, Gwyneth Paltrow in particular, one can hear the gears clicking.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I really didn't know what the make of this movie; so, I gave it a 4. Simlpy for the fact, that it was interesting to see Matt Damon play such a dark role.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible Movie!
Review: This movie is an incredible movie that twists, turns, and shows the depths of a tortured soul. Matt Damon plays Tom Ripley, a man who is excellent at impersonating people. He is sent to Italy to persuade the son of a rich man; who owns a shipbuilding business; to come back to America. The plot quickly thickens as Ripley finds himself lusting after Dickie; the son who is played by Jude Law; and his lifestyle. After Ripley kills Dickie, Ripley ends up assuming Dickie's life. He is nearly caught several times, leading him to kill one of Dickie's friends and to run away with another man so they can live together. Ripley's homosexuality is very strongly hinted at several times, but never stated as such. This suggestion is a constant source of underlying tension and does much to enhance the mood of the movie. Damon excelllently portrays Ripley, making the character believable, and actually; in my mind; somewhat worthy of pity and understanding. The movie is somewhat amoral, with no clearcut evil characters. Each character is shown in all their flaws and virtues. Excellent viewing and well worth buying!
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