Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8308 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-06-23
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 126 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A thriller that's nearly devoid of thrills? That's not a complaint--it's what makes The American Friend one of the most stylish (and at the time most expensive) films to emerge from the new German cinema of the 1970s. Loosely adapting Patricia Highsmith's mystery novel Ripley's Game, director Wim Wenders shifted priority from plotting to character, emphasising a richly colourful and atmospheric approach to locations in Hamburg, where a picture-framer (Bruno Ganz) is lured into an assassination scheme involving a mysterious Frenchman (Gerard Blain) and the titular American friend, Tom Ripley (played by Dennis Hopper, a far cry from either Matt Damon's portrayal of the same character in The Talented Mr Ripley or John Malkovich's in the 2003 version of Ripley's Game). The plotting is vague to the point of irrelevance; Wenders prefers to maintain the aura of mystery rather than generating any conventional suspense and expresses his affection for American movies by casting favourite directors Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller in pivotal supporting roles. The result is an intoxicating example of cinematic cross-pollination. --Jeff Shannon

Special Features
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
German
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 German
Dolby Digital 5.1
Audio Commentary By Writer And Director Wim Wenders And Dennis Hopper
Deleted Scenes With Commentary By Wim Wenders
Theatrical Trailer
Biographies
English

Synopsis
Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz), a German art-restorer, is dying of a rare blood disease. Despite his illness, the happily married Jonathan does his best to live each day to the fullest with his wife and child. But when cunning American gangster Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper) learns of Jonathan's sickness, he convinces the dying man--deeply concerned about his family's financial future--to work as a hit man for a big payoff. Will Jonathan get in over his head by making a deal that could ruin what's left of his life

Customer Reviews

With Friends Like These.....
THE AMERICAN FRIEND is a clever film, but one that perhaps suffers from a being a little too smart for its own good. As an exploration of the cultural colonisation of Germany it is very effective, and WIM WENDERS fills the subtext of his film with a pessimistic tone that borders on paranoia, a redolent theme for a film of the 1970's. He depicts a featureless and grey Europe that is bending under the unbearable yolk of capitalism. A continent that has had its originality squeezed out of it by the duplicitous behaviour of people like Tom Ripley. A land of commerce and greed, rather than art. In fact art becomes the metaphorical device for the insidiousness of a consumer driven society, with both painting and the cinema acting as its agents. Of all European countries to feel the pinch of forced doctrines by the USA, Germany in the wake of WW2 is perhaps the most notable. A generation of film-makers grew up with an ambivalent attitude towards Hollywood. They were respectful of its efficiency, but resentful of its corrupt value system and sought to implement their own brand of national cinema. THE AMERICAN FRIEND and to a lesser degree Werner Herzog's STROSZEK are the most indicative examples of these complex tensions. Viewed today the film also becomes an intricate and enjoyable parody of film noir and the values that genre embodied. It's post-modern credentials are worn as a badge, in both Wenders choices of colour, and especially in the casting. As a deconstruction of both Hollywood's influence and the effects of forced capitalism THE AMERICAN FRIEND works tremendously well. Unfortunately the sophistication of its satirical elements, wring a great deal of the life out of the film, especially in terms of excitement and spectacle.

Not Ripley's game - and the better for it
I ordered this DVD after I saw Ripley's Game. An American Friend, as it happens, is very loosely based on the same Patricia Highsmith novel. Zimmerman is a picture framer, who, expecting his death from an incurable disease, is persuaded to commit murder for money. The story follows Zimmerman, rather than Ripley. Zimermanns life - one rather imagines it to have been as free from adventure and excitement as a Shire Hobbit's - turns into a slow motion rollercoaster ride. Bruno Ganz' performance is moving as an ordinary man stepping way outside his boundaries whilst no one is looking. Dennis Hopper's appearance saves the film from being too much of an "Old Europe" introspective sort of movie. If you like to visit Ripley's world and think Hollywood might not not get it right - then this is a very interesting variation of it.