It's a fine adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith's story about sociopathic Tom Ripley & associates. Müller shoots it brilliantly to look like a Hopper painting (Edward),and Hopper plays Ripley coldly (Dennis). There's the added attraction of casting a bunch of directors as actors.... but is it ever more than a series of gimmicks?

I recall, oh, almost fifty years ago, when I was taking the Clarion writing course and one of the students talked about how you had to work at developing your style of writing. I always thought that was ridiculous. Did you also have to develop a style of walking, a style of breathing, a style of putting your shoes on in the morning? You tried various things, and some of them worked and you kept those. Some didn't and you abandoned those. What was left was your style. Think about how to do it a little better. Maybe it will work and you'll be successful, however you define success.

While I started this movie, I wondered if this was director Wim Wenders working on his style. Perhaps he thought it was a reflection of the story. After all, Tom Ripley is a manipulative, controlling character. Directors are manipulating, controlling characters. Was he trying to see if those character traits would show up on the screen? Or is it about nested levels of auteurism? A director directing directors as artists who create works of art over which they have absolute control... only they're forgeries, so they're all lying and it's all elephants all the way to the bottom.

Or perhaps I was just overthinking this because Wenders was tired of the critics and when a fellow director showed up, he gave him a role, then continued on as a goof. Maybe I should shut up, watch the movie, and see if I enjoyed it. There's a novel thought!

Bruno Ganz is living the virtuous life of an framer, since he's too ill to do restoration work. He's dying, actually. Ripley, whom he's annoyed, gets him set up doing killings, helping him liberally, happily and clumsily. There's lots of spilt brains and tortes for that wacky (no pun intended) German sense of humor. It's all Ripley's fault; it's some sort of low-level metaphor of American corruption, even if, for my money, Ganz corrupts pretty easily.

In short, it's a fine piece of translation of Highsmith to the screen, and kudos for that. If that's your idea of a good time, congratulations. It's not really mine.

But Müller's lighting is gorgeous.

I'm having more problems reviewing this film than most of the ones I've done on IMDb. I think it's because I liked parts of the film but the overall experience was a bit "blah" for me.

First, what I like. The story, in general, is really interesting and pretty unique--the mob wants a hit-man so they pick a terminally ill man and offer him a chance to make a few dollars to leave his family. It did remind me a little of Hitchcock, but was still quite unique and peaked my interest. Also, the sequence involving the assassination on the train was a particularly gripping segment.

Now, what I didn't like. The absolute biggest problem was the language. I've seen a lot of international productions before, but technically this one was a mess. Several of the actors really needed subtitles, as I really had to struggle to understand them with their very thick accents. Maybe re-dubbing would have also worked. The most difficult one to understand was the Frenchman, though occasionally I had some difficulty understanding Ganz and a couple others. Understand that I have seen hundreds of international films and this is the only time this problem was this severe. Part of it is due, I'm sure, to the lousy quality of the videotape, but certainly this was not the only culprit--the quality of the filming in general had a rather "cheap" feel to it. I really had to struggle to pay attention and needed to review a few scenes to fully understand them. This video was from Pacific Arts--perhaps if there is a DVD or different video AND it has Closed Captioning (this video didn't),then the experience would have improved. Also, I think that this film could have benefited from perhaps having a slightly less convoluted and more straight forward plot.

So, overall the experience was okay--there are certainly better and worse films you could watch.

"Der amerikanische Freund" or "The American Friend" is a German movie from almost 40 years ago. Director Wim Wenders adapted the Patricia Highsmith novel for his screenplay here. Highsmith has been in talks recently again because she also wrote the base material for the pretty popular new movie "Carol". But back to this one. I may be a bit biased as I like Wim Wenders and I like lead actor Bruno Ganz even more. Do not be confused by the cast list here. Dennis Hopper may be listed first because of his big name, but this film is Ganz' character's story and Hopper is only a major supporting player, just like Lisa Kreuzer, who plays the female protagonist in this 2-hour film.

I personally felt the movie never achieved real greatness or extraordinarily memorable moments and scenes, but it was still an atmospheric watch from start to finish. It was pretty tense, very suspenseful and I also liked the locations they chose for the scenes. Apart from that, Ganz carries this film strongly from start to finish and he also physically looks exactly like he would fit into an American film of this genre. My favorite scene was probably when he commits the first murder, but runs away despite being instructed to stay calm and not act differently. The train scenes afterward were very good too. Then again, this should not come as a surprise as everybody who knows Ganz knows that he is a truly gifted character actor.

All in all, I recommend the watch. People who appreciate the likes of "The Untouchables", "Dog Day Afternoon", "The French Connection" or "The Conversation" can certainly check this film out and they will not be disappointed. I personally also had to think of "Breaking Bad" on one or two occasions. A man who is sure that he dies gets deeper and deeper into the abyss of crime in attempts to get money for his family. Of course, he was already a criminal before things got serious in contrast to Walter White. But maybe others do not see this parody. Maybe it is just me. Anyway, thumbs up for "The American Friend". I recommend it, even if it is not my favorite from the director. That would still be another Wenders-Ganz collaboration "Der Himmel über Berlin".