Reflection on the so called Talents
Of one Mr. Ripley
By: Mr. Kritik
I recently saw a certain film called "The Talented Mr. Ripley." It starred, well it doesn't matter who was in the movie, all you need to know is that it is a terrible, terrible movie. My mother used to tell me that a movie had to have a plot and that a plot had to have a point, well "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is proof to the contrary.
The "plot" of this movie featured Tom Ripley's love affair with men and killing them. He starts off meeting the father of Dickie Greenleaf. Dickie's father thinks that Tom went to school with Dickie (because Tom lies about it). Dickie's father offers Tom $1,000 to go to Italy, were Dickie is spending his father's money and having sex with Gwyneth Paltrow (her character was superfluous enough that I don't remember her name), and convince Dickie to come back and work in a boat-yard.
YEAH-RIGHT!! Hmm, sex in Venice with Gwyneth Paltrow/ building boats with my dad... duhhh!
Anyway, Tom goes, falls in love with Dickie (yep- Dickie!!! Not Gwyneth!) and "accidently" kills him on a boat ride when he hits him with an oar. Now I won't lie...this was undoubtedly the high point of the film. There's blood, and action, and Matt Damon (Tom Ripley) screaming like a girl. Then Dickie dies.
But is the movie over, oh no, you still have to sit through another hour or so of Tom pretending to by Dickie, and then being himself at other times. Well he ends up killing another guy, Freddy Miles one of Dickie's friends, the head of some statue. It's a really lame scene. Then Gwyneth Paltrow show back up and figures it all out, because the pigs (which is how I will refer to police in this column) think that Dickie killed Mr. Miles. Anyway, just in time Tom writes a suicide note for Dickie (whose already dead, haven't you been paying attention). But Dickie's father shows up, with this American P.I. Uh-oh, caught!
But not really. See it seems that Dickie has a history of a rather violent temper, and Dickie's father & the P.I. are actually there to cover all that up. So Tom Ripley ends up getting away with all this, plus a portion of Dickie's trust fund. Well in the process of all this Tom has fallen in love with this guy Peter, who was like Gwyneth's other boyfricnd (don't ask it's really not worth explaining) and Peter love him too. But Tom kills Peter on a boat. Why? They never explain becacause the movie ends right there!!!!
This plot had no point at all! I suppose you could read all sorts of things into it, but I mean there's no surface plot point. Take out the killing and the rampant homosexuality, and you wouldn't have anything. We don't even get to see Gwyneth Paltrow in attractive or revealing attire (or naked for that matter), because the movie takes place in some time other that the 90's.
I guess I should mention the acting, which was horrible too. All in all this movie sucked. It would have been better if it was made on a low budget with actors nobody has ever heard of before. Like one of those crappy, artsie films, that everyone expects to suck as it is. I rate movies on a scale of 5 Elements, 5 being a good movie and 1 being this movie. That right 1/2 Element for having cast Gwyneth Paltrow, and 1/2 Element for effort. I also like to end my reviews with a quote from the movie, but with bad movies like this I pick a quote from another movie (because there are no good one-liners or quotes that make sense).
"My teacher says real beauty is on the inside."
-Max Reede (Justin Cooper)
"That is just something ugly people say."
-Fletcher Reede (Jim Carrey)
A Note From Mark--
I want to start this first installment of Mr. Kritik by stating that his views are not necessarily those held by me. The second thing I would like to address is the wonderful inspiration given us by The Bruching Shuttlecocks' Self-Made Critic. We basically stole this format from him and if anyone has a problem with it click here. Have a nice day.