Product: The American Friend [VHS] (1977)
Rating: 3.0
Ripley as a Low-life
After reading the novel, I was disappointed in the Wenders treatment, which portrayed Ripley as a rather sleazy barstool cowboy transplanted in Germany, rather than the outwardly affluent, comfortably-married amoral intellectual of the book. I felt that Dennis Hopper was playing a continuation of his Easy Rider role. The European locale was interesting, if bleak, and, again did not provide the ironic contrast of the French provincial setting. Bruno Ganz was excellent, however, as the troubled craftsman. The denouement was rather tenuous.