CON MR. RIPLEY REVIEW

Remember those people a few years ago who said that "The English Patient" was the greatest film to come down the pike since, well, ever? You saw it, though bits of it were brilliant, thought a lot of it was boring, and wondered what all the fuss was about. "The Talented Mr. Ripley," the new film from "Patient" director Anthony Minghella, won't have too much of a problem mustering similar reactions, both fawning and frustrated, from its audience.

It's an original film. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's good. Plenty of people are going to latch onto this and say that it's daring, beautiful, difficult filmmaking. Some of it is. A lot of it isn't. "Ripley" is a mishandled film that has got some nice character work and a few strong scenes but a major problem with the one thing it's supposed to be about: identity.

This is the little (and you can hear the gasps from the Miramax executives when the word "little" is used) film made after the big bang, the part where the acclaimed director decides to take on a smaller, quirkier project to keep his edge sharp. It's the kind of thing only good directors do. It takes balls to shift gears. The shift is commendable. Unfortunately the end product doesn't live up to the promise of the potential.

It's not so much a problem of pacing. Diamond-tipped shears in the editing room probably couldn't liven this up that much. It's a problem of premise, of where they wanted the character of Ripley to go and what they wanted him to be. "Plunges" probably isn't the proper word to describe how swiftly the film jumps into the story. More like "power nose dives."

Before Minghella's name even comes on screen Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) is established as a fraud and is hired to go to Italy to find Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), the son of Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn). Ripley finds Dickie, along with Dickie's girlfriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), and faster than you can say "awkward situation" Ripley is leeching onto the couple and harboring more-than-friendly feelings towards Dickie.

**Spoiler Ahead in Next Paragraph**

Dickie spurns him, Ripley gets angry, you wouldn't like Ripley when he's angry and.Ripley kills Dickie, assumes his identity and moves to Rome, telling Marge that Dickie has left her. Marge still thinks that Ripley is Ripley as she pines after Dickie, Marge and Herbert begin to question Dickie's disappearance and the whole second half of the movie is the big question of whether or not the house of cards Ripley has built up will come crashing down.

It's all very nice looking but there's a feeling that something is off. Maybe it's the forced pronunciations of James Rebhorn. Maybe it's the missed opportunity to set things up better when Ripley decides to tell a travelling socialite, a very cute Cate Blanchett in a very bland role, that he's Dickie. Maybe it's that Minghella won't step back and let his camera breathe for fear that some important character tick or sly sentence will go unnoticed.

This doesn't feel like it was wrangled together by a sure hand. This doesn't feel like the director who crafted the next the world's second greatest biplane scene, after "North by Northwest".

It's not that the film can't dredge up enough chutzpah to elicit a reaction from the audience. There are a few sequences that kick. This might be bad Hitchcock but bad Hitchcock is better than most good directors any day. Yet the feeling that the movie leaves you with isn't one of fascination or vicarious thrills or excitement or even a sense of taboo glee. It's ambivalence. Nothing lingers on the tongue once the curtain goes down.

That might be because the movie succeeds far too well at walking the tightrope between Ripley the beast and Ripley the guy we cheer for. Instead of being that monster we care for he's.he's not much of anything. Sure a few times the blood rises at the prospect that he's going to be caught. Yet it's almost as if the two conflicting emotions cancel each other out. The terror blurs out the scared little boy, and the scared little boy erases the terror. He's too perfectly balanced. Ripley turns out to be a passing fancy. He's forgotten far too quickly once the movie ends.

If it takes you almost two and a half hours to tell the audience that the main character is completely amoral, that he'll do anything to get out of the swamp of problems he's mucked himself into, then there's a problem.

If that's the most interesting thing that can be said about the character there's a big problem. The killings, the cover-ups, the run- ins with the law--those are all extraneous. This rests on Ripley. Is he or isn't he someone that can be summed up by a few cute sentences or examples? He is, and the movie suffers for it.

For all the talent, all the beauty, all the strengths of the respective parts of this film the main deal is still Ripley. As well as Damon plays him-bad part, bad teeth, bad glasses and all-Ripley is still a one trick pony. Plenty of people will be suckered into thinking he's more than that, and maybe it's a little snide to suppose that this is the real deal on the character, but Ripley is, at heart, the evil henchman from a Bond movie. Only now, instead of playing a peripheral role and getting knocked off in the third act, he's the center of attention. It should be a lot more interesting than this.

For a few stretches in the film Ripley is an engaging character and everything bops along nicely. By the end of the last reel, though, the feelings toward Ripley are just as detached as his own feelings towards people in his way. You just don't care. And you realize that, for the past two hours, you've been concerning yourself with the life of a poor soul who really has no personality.

If it all were very interesting it'd be fine. The fact that it's not, and that by the end of "Ripley" the most pervasive feeling is no feeling at all, turns what could have been a little macabre delight into.nothing. You feel tricked as the film ends. Tricked for caring whether or not he made it, tricked for waiting through the long stretches of boring scenes in hopes that something really special was going to be the reward. Should Ripley be a good guy? No. Should he be a little deeper? Yes.

This isn't a thriller. This isn't a simple character study. This isn't a hard drama. It's.it doesn't really know what it wants to be. Tom Ripley might be the patron saint of sickness wrapped up in a cuddly coat but everything surrounding him makes it feel like no one knows quite how to deal with him. That the other characters are a bit unsure of Ripley is fine. It's the point.

That the director is unsure of how to deal with him, though, is a deep, deep flaw, one that makes a movie that could have been an engrossing look into a sick man simply bland. It's got a great ending, though. John Robie out...

Aussie Cate Online © 1999 Lin, Dean, Lance
800x600 screen size recommended.

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