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I was looking forward to seeing this movie based on the trailers.
It seemed like a great mystery, which I always enjoy. I don't hate
Matt Damon. It had gotten good pre-release buzz. What's not to like?
Answer: A lot.
Matt Damon plays Tom Ripley, a working class fellow who meets up
with the wealthy Mr. Greenleaf and is mistaken for a classmate of
Greenleaf's ne'er-do-well son, Dickie. Greenleaf pays Ripley to
go to Italy and persuade Dickie to return to America. When Ripley
gets there he becomes enamored with Dickie's lifestyle (and Dickie
himself), and worms his way into Dickie's life. Eventually, Dickie
gets bored with Ripley, calling him a bore, and Ripley murders him,
and then assumes his identity. As you can imagine, this charade
becomes more and more difficult for Ripley to keep up, and hijinks
ensue.
I wish I could tell you more about this movie, but frankly, I fell
dead asleep right after the initial murder. I woke up about half
an hour later to see another important plot point, and then fell
back to sleep for another half hour. I woke up to see the last hour
or so of the movie. Afterwards, I felt like I must have missed some
important stuff, seeing as how I missed a whole hour of the movie.
I told Jim what I knew, and he said, "Yeah, that's pretty much
it." Isn't there something wrong when I missed a third of the
movie, and didn't miss anything?
The thing that bothered me most about this movie is that it had
no subtlety whatsoever. So Tom Ripley is gay. I'm not sure if that
was supposed to be conveyed in a subtle manner, via his longing
glances at Dickie. Really, though. First, he's in love with Dickie.
Then he's in love with Peter. Get it? He's GAY!
And then he lies to get to Italy in the first place. He murders
people. Then he lies some more. Get it? He's amoral! He doesn't
have any morals. No morals!
I guess I just don't see what the big fuss was about. I've seen
this movie mentioned as Oscar worthy, and I just don't see it. It
was too long, and boring, and totally unsubtle. The only conversation
it generated after seeing it was to discuss how dumb it was. Bleh.
I give it a 2 out of 10.
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