Set about 20 years after The talented Mr Ripley, Tom Ripley (John Malkovich) is now married, living in an Italian estate and wealthy from the spoils of his criminal exploits. At a party, a minor social offence against Tom becomes a reason for him to seek revenge. So, when an associate asks for Ripley's help with a murder, he suggests enlisting the offending party, killing two birds with one stone. With so many parties involved, however, things soon go awry.
Special Agent Matti
Oh, boy, this is nothing like the first one. In The talented Mr Ripley, you had a cute young guy making his devious way in the world. In Ripley's game you have a tired, haggard, balding, old fart making his immoral way in the world. John Malkovich is so wrong for an older Matt Damon that it's cringeworthy. The scene where he makes love to his sexy young Italian girlfriend will make you shudder.
It also wasn't helped any that I kept thinking this was a sequel to The Bourne identity rather than The talented Mr Ripley, but that's no excuse for making Matt grow up to be John.
All the actors in this film play their roles very low to the ground: hardly anyone gets excited, hardly anyone gets exciting. It's hard to watch a film where the actors don't seem to care about what they're doing; all they do is wander about the Italian countryside with the occasional lurch into pan-European crime. And how believable is that for a plot device: dodgy drug dealer uses cancer-ridden crime virgin as assassin in international underworld hit. Like no-one would suspect the person who gets the benefit of these assassinations. Duh.
Ripley's game is more than just a little bit silly and should be avoided unless desperate.
MA 15+ (Medium level violence)
110 minutes (1:50 hours)
Film: 17 April 2003