By PETER CALDER
(Herald rating: * *)
Anthony Minghella's 1999 screen adaptation of the 1950s Patricia Highsmith novel that introduced the cool and chameleonic Tom Ripley to cinema audiences was a masterpiece of screen storytelling which managed to be a dense, almost Jamesian meditation on identity while remaining true to its
killer-thriller roots.
No such subtlety is on show in this crass and ham-fisted version of the third novel in the Ripley series. It is adapted by Charles McKeown (who wrote several of Terry Gilliam's films) and helmed with a reverential languor by the 70-year-old Cavani, who directed Bogarde and Rampling in The Night Porter all those years ago.
But it belongs to its star: for those - and I am among them - who enjoy watching Malkovich being John Malkovich, the film is not without its pleasures. But you can't call it a thriller because it's just not very thrilling.
Ripley now is not the sunny lad with a heart of darkness that Matt Damon was when he said that it was better "to be a fake somebody than a real nobody". This Tom Ripley has arrived, in Venice, where he has married into enough wealth to indulge his refined aesthetic sensibilities.
His wife (Caselli) is a bird in a gilded cage. Her performances as a harpsichordist are good enough to fill concert halls but she is really just a pretty thing like the forged Renaissance drawings which Ripley sells to greedy collectors.
Into Ripley's ordered world blunders Reeves (Winstone), a Cockney thug who needs a hitman to deal with a problem at one of his Berlin clubs. The film offers no explanation as to why Reeves doesn't hire a Berlin heavy, nor why Ripley, who regards Reeves with venomous distaste, would have anything to do with him.
Still less comprehensible is the reason Ripley orchestrates the involvement of Trevanney (Scott), a terminally ill expatriate English picture framer. There is a hint that Ripley is exacting revenge for a disparaging comment about his poor taste, but that suggests an intemperateness that doesn't gel with the Ripley we are invited to loathe.
What ensues is a high body count kill-fest which becomes progressively more improbable (one scene has five in a railway carriage toilet) and less enjoyable, culminating in a siege of Ripley's mansion which is about as much fun as a dental examination. All the while, Malkovich affects a detachment which looks bored and is boring: despite lofty pronouncements such as, "I'm not afraid of being caught because I don't believe anybody's watching", his character is about as deep as a puddle.
In the end the film just stops, sort of. We might have hoped for more, a metaphysical punchline of sorts. But we have to settle for a sense of profound relief that it's all over.
Cast: John Malkovich, Dougray Scott, Ray Winstone, Lena Headey, Chiara Caselli
Director: Liliana Cavani
Running time: 110 minutes
Rating: R16, violence, offensive language
Screening: Rialto
By PETER CALDER
(Herald rating: * *)
Anthony Minghella's 1999 screen adaptation of the 1950s Patricia Highsmith novel that introduced the cool and chameleonic Tom Ripley to cinema audiences was a masterpiece of screen storytelling which managed to be a dense, almost Jamesian meditation on identity while remaining true to its
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