The Talented Mr. Ripley
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Overview
In late 1950s New York, Tom Ripley, a young underachiever, is sent to Europe to retrieve a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy, named Dickie Greenleaf. But when the errand fails, Ripley kills the playboy and begins to assume his life. To be young and carefree amid the blue waters and idyllic landscape of sun-drenched Italy in the late 1950s; thats la dolce vita Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) craves – and Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) leads. When Dickies father, a wealthy ship builder, asks Tom to bring his errant playboy son back home to America, Dickie and his beautiful expatriate girlfriend, Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow), never suspect the dangerous extremes to which Ripley will go to make their lifestyle his own. After all, its better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. The movie “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, is written by Anthony Minghella and Patricia Highsmith. The movie stars: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Davenport, James Rebhorn, Sergio Rubini, Philip Baker Hall and Celia Weston. “The Talented Mr. Ripley was released on December 25, 1999, and the movies genre consists of crime, drama, mystery and thriller. The movie is 139 minutes in length which means that it was just a little over two hours long. This is one of the longest movies that I have watched since Titanic.
Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) is certainly talented – talented at lying, forging, impersonating and possibly also murder. A wealthy businessman hires Ripley to go to Italy and persuade his wayward, hedonistic son, Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), to return home. However, Ripley takes a liking to Dickies lavish lifestyle, and to his girlfriend, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) – a particlularly unhealthy liking that leads him into a nightmarish game of cat-and-mouse with the Italian police (Movie Web, 2006).