Product: The American Friend [VHS] (1977)
Rating: 4.0
Absorbing modern film-noir about manipulation and insecurity
This film doesn't really have much to do with gangsters. Patricia Highsmith's rather ugly novel, "The Talented Mr. Ripley", introduces the desperate and selfish Tom Ripley, a would-be con-man who winds up killing an artist acquaintance and exploits the 'friendship' by selling forgeries of the late artist's works.In the movie, based on the sequel "Ripley's Game", Ripley (Dennis Hopper) is stung by the criticism of German frame-maker Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz.) Zimmerman suffers from a blood disease and Ripley exploits the German's fears by insinuating that he is at death's door. Ripley manipulates Zimmerman into becoming a hitman for a European mobster. Perversly the two men become friends and Ripley begins to experience concern for his victim - too late!Acclaimed German director Wim Wenders, famed for "Wings of Desire", guides us from Zimmerman's quaint 'old European' craftshop to Ripley's modern home full of American cultural flotsam and through a techno-urban Europe of anomie and paranoia. Excellent performances by Hopper and Ganz.