Ripley Under Ground (film)

Ripley Under Ground
File:Ripley Under Ground FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by	Roger Spottiswoode
Written by	W. Blake Herron Donald E. Westlake
Based on	Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith
Starring	Barry Pepper Jacinda Barrett Tom Wilkinson Willem Dafoe Alan Cumming Claire Forlani Ian Hart
Music by	Jeff Danna
Cinematography	Paul Sarossy
Edited by	Michel Arcand
Distributed by	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release dates	6 November 2005
Running time	101 minutes
Country	Germany, France, UK
Language	English

Ripley Under Ground (also known as White on White) is a 2005 German–British–French crime thriller directed by Roger Spottiswoode and based on the second novel in Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley series. The film stars Barry Pepper as the cunning psychopath Ripley and features Willem Dafoe, Alan Cumming and Tom Wilkinson in supporting roles. Ripley Under Ground was produced during July and August 2003, but was only released two years later. It was shown on the 2005 AFI Fest by American Film Institute, receiving a low-profile wide theatrical release.

Plot summary

After his friend, a successful young artist, is killed in a car accident, Tom Ripley (Pepper) and his friends hide his body and concoct a scheme in which they forge his paintings, eventually making a great deal of money. When an art collector (Dafoe) complains that a painting he bought from the gallery is a fake, Ripley must use his inimitable talents to defuse the problem by whatever means necessary.

Cast

• Barry Pepper as Tom Ripley
• Willem Dafoe as Neil Murchison
• Alan Cumming as Jeff Constant
• Tom Wilkinson as John Webster
• Jacinda Barrett as Héloïse Plisson
• Claire Forlani as Cynthia
• Ian Hart as Bernard Sayles
• Douglas Henshall as Derwatt
• François Marthouret as Antoine Plisson

Release and reception

The film received a wide theatrical release on 6 November 2005, as well as being shown at the AFI Fest film festival in Los Angeles. It was released on DVD on 24 July 2007 in the Netherlands.

Given the film's low-profile release, critical reviews have been scarce. Variety's review was less than positive, saying: "Although it strives to push Patricia Highsmith's best-known bad man in a snarky direction, Ripley Under Ground is too fidgety and unsure to settle on a sustained tone and ends up in a no man's land between hysterical satire and sleek Euro thriller. As previous filmic Ripleys demonstrated, from Purple Noon and The American Friend to The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley's Game, it's all in the casting, and the talented Mr. Barry Pepper is not capable of pulling off the demonically complicated and murderous con artist."

WorldsGreatestCritic.com, however, gave a positive review, praising Barry Pepper's "impeccable performance" and the film for capturing "the fun of Ripley, a fun that few others have captured from Highsmith's prose." As of 1 February 2010, Ripley Under Ground has a user rating of 6.1 out of 10, based on 809 votes, on The Internet Movie Database.

External links

• Ripley Under Ground at IMDb
• Ripley Under Ground at Rotten Tomatoes