We’d watched The Talented Mr. Ripley, the one starring Matt Damon, a couple of years back and rather liked it but I didn’t realize that this German film by director Wim Wenders is actually about the very same fictional character until quite a ways into it. Obviously I’ve also never read any of the novels by Patricia Highsmith and this one covers a later period in Ripley’s life.

One reason for this confusion is that Wenders has chosen to make his protagonist Jonathan Zimmerman, a framer and restorer of paintings who seems to be dying of some unspecified disease. Tom Ripley happens to be living in Hamburg during this time and is running an art forgery scam. At an auction, Ripley overhears Zimmerman commenting that the colors of a fake painting are somehow off and is further offended when Zimmerman refuses to shake his hand, saying that he has heard of his sour reputation. After learning of Zimmerman’s disease, he contrives for a French gangster friend to hire him for an assassination job as he is a man with nothing to lose.

The version of the film that I watched had English subtitles for the German and French dialogue but none for the English lines. Since the German and French actors sometimes have quite thick accents, this makes their dialogue difficult to understand, compounding the confusion. Then there’s the way that Dennis Hopper plays a very different Tom Ripley compared to Matt Damon. In The Talented Mr. Ripley, he was essentially a guttersnipe who pretends to be cultured and educated. Here, he is boorishly American, wearing a cowboy hat everywhere and speaking awful German. It may not be very fair, but I preferred the slickness and charm of Damon’s portrayal to this duller and seemingly clumsier version.

Instead of being a complex thriller, The American Friend is more of a character study on Zimmerman, an ordinary man who is lured into becoming a killer. He’s played by Bruno Ganz, whose performance we greatly enjoyed recently in Downfall. Unfortunately, here I found it difficult to get a good grip on what makes his character tick. The second time he meets Ripley for example, he tries to make amends for his earlier cold behavior by offering him a small gift. He is disturbed that someone seems to be spreading rumors about his ill health and doesn’t seem to be angry at Ripley when he confesses. It is interesting that an uncomfortable kind of bond then develops between the two characters, and that drives the rest of the film, but I just can’t shake the feeling that I must be missing a piece of the puzzle here.

I must admit that this film has been highly reviewed and I do get that it is trying to accomplish more than just entertain. But whether it is due to a cultural gap or something that is lost in translation I just can’t grasp what it’s trying to say and so I’ll have to call this one a miss for me.