Ripley's Game

Ripley's Game is a 2002 thriller film directed by Liliana Cavani. It is adapted from the 1974 novel Ripley's Game, the third in Patricia Highsmith's series about the murderous adventures of the anti-hero Tom Ripley. John Malkovich stars as Ripley, opposite Dougray Scott and Ray Winstone. It received positive reviews. Highsmith's novel was previously adapted in 1977 as The American Friend by director Wim Wenders, starring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz. Plot Tom Ripley is involved in an art forgery scheme in Berlin, in partnership with British gangster Reeves. Upon finding out that Reeves has attempted to cheat him, Ripley forces Reeves' customer at gunpoint to give him the money intended for the forgeries, and kills the man’s bodyguard. He also steals back the artwork for himself, and curtly tells Reeves that their partnership is over. Three years later, Ripley is living in a lush villa in Veneto with his wife Luisa, a harpsichordist. Invited by a neighbour to a party, Ripley overhears the host, Jonathan Trevanny, insulting his taste and alluding to his shady reputation. Ripley briefly confronts him, then sullenly leaves the party. Reeves resurfaces, much to Ripley's annoyance, asking him to eliminate a rival mobster. Ripley recommends Trevanny for the job as revenge for the slight. Believing Trevanny, a law-abiding art framer who is dying of leukemia, to be an assassin, Reeves offers him the job for a large fee. A bewildered Trevanny initially refuses, but eventually agrees, to make sure that his wife and son are provided for after his death. Trevanny travels to Berlin under the pretense of seeing a leukemia specialist, and kills the mobster at a museum. He refuses Reeves' offer of even more money to kill another mobster, this time on a train, but relents after Reeves threatens his family.