A curious film about a curious young man.

I'm not sure what to make of the title character. He is obviously intelligent, talented, resourceful and quick-thinking. One wonders therefore how he thinks that he will continue to get away with his charade, as the pile of dead bodies behind him continues to grow. Or maybe that is just par for the course for the criminally inclined.

A short summary of the plot: Our hero, a piano player, gets mistaken for an ex student of a famous American university, where Rich Daddy's blue-eyed boy had also studied. Playing along not to cause offence, our hero admits to knowing blue eyes, and is soon sent on a mission to Italy to bring the prodigal son home.

Once there, he admires the life style that the renegade is leading, particularly his leading lady, and so explains the situation to him and suggests that it will be to everyone's benefit if they string daddy along for a while, so that they can all live the idyllic life.

And so all goes well for a while, until a quarrel ends in tragedy, and our student is left with a difficult situation: get arrested for murder, or impersonate the victim? He chooses the latter, and has to be increasingly versatile and resourceful to maintain the masquerade. Part of this process is an increasing body count as some people get too close to the truth and need to permanently removed from society.

The performances are mostly good, especially from the Oscar-nominated Jude Law, but somehow the film never reaches any great heights or Really Tense moments, although there are times when Discovery is Imminent and you sit amazed as our hero (villian?) wriggles out of yet another exposé.

The ending leaves many unanswered questions, perhaps we can expect The Further Adventures of the Talented Mr. Ripley to come and illuminate us?

The film has been compared to works by Alfred Hitchcock, and although it pays him homage, I'm not sure that it actually falls into the same class.

-- Ian Douglas