The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

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Love the Hard Way

Film.com's FREE movie of the week is "Love the Hard Way." Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Charlotte Ayanna star in this drama about a thief who falls for a curious, beautiful young woman. As their intimacy grows, a slick cop (Pam Greer) is closing in.

CinemaSource

Rating: R

Release Date: Dec 25, 1999

Running Time: 139 mins. (V)

Country Of Origin: United States

starring: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Davenport, James Rebhorn, Sergio Rubini, Philip Baker Hall, Celia Weston

director: Anthony Minghella

To be young and carefree amid the blue waters and idyllic landscape of sun-drenched Italy in the late 1950s; that's la dolce vita Tom Ripley craves--and Dickie Greenleaf leads. When Dickie's father, a wealthy ship builder, asks Tom to bring his errant playboy son back home to America, Dickie and his beautiful ex-patriate girlfriend, Marge Sherwood, never suspect the dangerous extremes to which Ripley will go to make their lifestyle his own. After all, it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

Don't let the trailers mislead you: ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' is not about a young, handsome man whose obsession with a blond beauty leads him to kill a rival and stalk her in movie-of-the-week-type scenarios.

In fact, it's as far from movie-of-the week material as you can get. Directed superbly by Academy Award-winning director Anthony Minghella (''The English Patient''), ''Ripley'' is a smart yet unsettling story of identity, executed by a group of actors likely to win the film a Most…