At the age of 32, a prolific Wim Wenders forays into adapting Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley story to the celluloid screen in his seventh feature, THE AMERICAN FRIEND receives a Cannes main competition entry and stars Dennis Hopper as the self-exile middle-aged Tom Ripley in a cowboy hat living inside a big mansion on his ownsome in Hamburg, partakes in art forgery racket. Nicholas Ray plays a presumedly dead painter Derwatt, sometimes wears an eye-patch, cynically tossing off new works for Ripley to sell in the auction house.It is where, Ripley meets Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz in his big screen breakout role), a painter framer and art restorer, who is diagnosed with a rare blood disease, may or may not be pushing up daisies any day sooner, Jonathan unceremoniously brushes aside Ripley with a curt "I've heard of you" (a , the slight triggers the latter's retaliation (typically Ripley!), by disseminating rumors about the former's blood condition to be fatal, and recommends Jonathan when a French gangster Raoul Minot (Blain) needs a candidate with a clean slate as a hitman. Rebuffing Minot's offer at first, Jonathan naively agrees to have another medical checkup in a Parisian hospital organized by Minot, beyond any doubt, no one would believe that its pessimistic outcome is not doctored by Minot but Jonathan himself, tempted to earn some fast money for his wife Marianne (Kreuzer) and their son Daniel (Dedecke) when he will be gone, he commits his first sortie (conveniently) inside a Paris metro station (albeit drolly clumsy) before heading back to Hamburg. However, an improbable freemasonry between Ripley and Jonathan burgeons in spite of their prima facie disfavor, Wenders fidgets with multifarious artifacts to smooth the transition, objects like golden foil, zoetrope, stereopticon, gyroscope, Polaroid, etc. suffuse the faintly insipid narrative with its ethos-signalling vim and melancholia, which writs large in Ripley's solitary existence, e.g. his monologue "There is nothing to fear but fear itself" is manifested not once but twice, infused with lurid chromatic choices in full bloom (red, blue, leaden-gray and green are primal pointers to the mood-scape). Their bond veers into partners-in-crime when Jonathan nearly botches a second mission on a train from Munich to Hamburg if not for Ripley's sudden succor, and Ripley's confession as the rumormonger, apparently doesn't stir Jonathan's ill-feelings, only leads to a final betrayal after they eliminate their common assailants, that halts with an ironic outcome when mortality suddenly beckons. Less a genre practitioner than an arch stylist, Wenders meanders through the discomfiting drama with an Edward Hopper-esque commitment to its milieu and surroundings, tonally, it bewitchingly tallies with Tom Ripley's existential crisis which vaguely stoked by a smack of homoerotic impulse, and Jonathan's thrill-inflected imprudence. A brooding Bruno Ganz eloquently betrays an enthralling temperament which is buried under Jonathan's pedestrian appearance, and is affectively unpredictable and sympathetic in the eyes of this beholder. Dennis Hopper has a less prominent screen-time but it is an eye-pleasing experience (on the condition that if we could overlook his unsavory wig during the scenes of the second mission) to watch him not in his trademark menacing mode, but registers something more self-revealing. Lisa Kreuzer, is hindered by a stereotyped suspicious wife role, must put on a strong face against all odds, yet plumbing into a feminine mindset is not Wenders' forte.A cineaste's lollapalooza, with many an auteur taking on an acting gig (Nicolas Ray, Samuel Fuller, Daniel Schmid, Jean Eustache, not to mention actor/director hyphenates Hopper and Blain), THE AMERICAN FRIEND is a testament that Wenders' faculty is on the verge of its full maturity, not a conventionally cut-throat crime thriller but a nostalgic scenester recapitulating its zeitgeist with a splash of idiosyncrasy and quaintness.

The American Friend is an interesting film. The film follows Jonathan, a family man with a blood pathogen, a frame maker, and a quiet and thoughtful fellow. He is recruited by the Mafia in France to assassinate two people, and the Mafia use his blood disease to dupe him into the jobs with the promise of money for his wife and son. The story takes Jonathan from Germany to Paris to complete the jobs, and his friend and handler, Tom, acts as his guardian angel during the more difficult moments.This movie is a mixed bag for me. Their are a lot of really great things about the film. The film is colourful, with wonderful establishing shots, use of costumes, and really great direction and shooting, which make the film really gorgeous. It manages to look almost surreal at times, and the use of head shots, close ups and panning to establishing what is happening make up for a lack of dialogue in the film. The acting is good, with Dennis Hopper as Tom being particularly interesting, and Bruno Ganz doing a quiet and reserved Jonathan well. The film has some tense moments as well, as the assassination jobs move forward, with Jonathan, the amateur assassin, tailing his prey, making mistakes, and having to improvise. The domestic scenes are also poignant, sweet, and entertaining. Much of this film is quite solid, with brooding and tense moments mixed with quiet and surreal to create a very tense and dream-like atmosphere.However, I had some reservations about this film. The story and plot were quite dull. I have watched slow burners many times, with films like Le Samourai being one of my favourites in the film noir line. The American Friend felt much slower. There is little dialogue at all, and much of the film features Jonathan trying to figure out what to do, with long shots of his expressions, him contemplating and so on. This felt very weak to me, and I struggled to hold my attention a few times. There were also a few confusing plot points. The various side characters in the film appear, at least at the beginning, to be part of a wider plot that may be revealed. This is never capitalized on, however. These characters flutter through hither thither, but there is no pay off, no explanation, to why we are seeing these set ups. Why do we need to go back to New York with Tom? Jonathan will never know anything that happens there.All in all, a bit of a mixed bag for me, but one I consider worth watching. It is a slow burning film to be sure, with a plot that I would approach calling weak, and a tad dull. Even so, the colourful and innovative shooting and direction, the good acting, and the tension and surreal aspects of the film, lend a hand to make it a watchable film. Easy to recommend for fans of film noir, or more "art house" affair. 6/10

Wim Wenders' film has all the hallmarks of having been concocted deliberately for lovers of European art house, but it is not convincing. The plot is straight out of Hitchcock, an ordinary family man(Bruno Ganz)meets a mysterious, menacing enigma (Dennis Hopper) who leads him out of his safe world on a series of dangerous missions in other big cities(Paris/ Munich). There is a sub-plot around the use of frames and perception, that plays on the Ganz's characters job in a picture framer/ restorer, but I would have been oblivious to this if I had not read the notes that came with my DVD. The real problem arises in that Bruno Ganz treats the role seriously and puts some convincing angst into the ghastly situation he is put in, but Dennis Hopper clearly does not take the film seriously. Reportedly he came to blows with Ganz for his refusal to learn his lines and his mumbling, mock-mad acting style only ends up killing the impact of his dialogue. Either Hopper felt a European film was beneath him or he knew that Wenders plans were too pretentious to be taken seriously. Wenders is also apparently incapable of shooting a single attractive scene. He makes Hamburg bleak, New York uninteresting and even manages to make Paris ugly.

From director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas), based on the novel Ripley's Game, which I know was turned into a film with John Malkovich, this film featured in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, so I naturally wanted to see it. Basically Swiss picture framer Jonathan Zimmermann (Downfall's Bruno Ganz) from Hamburg, Germany is slowly dying of the blood disease leukaemia, and American art forger Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper), and they are introduced to each other at an auction. French criminal Raoul Minot (Gérard Blain) approaches Tom, he wants him to kill a rival gangster, but he refuses, but the criminal presses him that he owes him, so Minot suggests the idea to Jonathan, offering a lot of money to give his wife Marianne (Lisa Kreuzer) and son after he dies. Zimmermann originally turns down the offer, but remembering he may not have long to live, and tricked by Minot into thinking he is dying sooner than he think, he does agree to the murder. He manages to shoot the man in question at an underground train station without notice, and Ripley visits him before and after this happens to have a picture framed, Jonathan has no idea he is involved in the scheme, but the two become good friends. Tom is appalled by Minot after he wants Zimmermann to kill another rival gangster, this time on a moving train by strangulation, but he agrees again, only after he makes sure his wife will get the money whatever happens to him. He does not expect Ripley to be on the train as well though, and he commits the murder instead, along with a bodyguard, and after some near misses with passengers and other criminals on the train they do get away with it. When they return home Tom confesses to Jonathan his involved in the scheme, he declines an offer to take his money for the hit and he wants nothing more to do with his friend, he advises Jonathan he should tell Minot he acted alone. Ripley is later contacted by Zimmermann because his wife is becoming suspicious of his recent activity, she also believes the American man is corrupting him, also he believes the mafia are looking for him after some mysterious phone calls. After Minot tells Jonathan his flat has been bombed, and Tom takes him with him to the mansion where assassins are meeting them, they are ambushed but manage to kill the gunmen, and they plan a long distance journey to dump the bodies. Jonathan's wife tells him that he was deceived about his medical condition, and he agrees to have a proper talk about things after they have got rid of the bodies in the ambulance they have taken. They stop on a beach and Tom with them pours petrol all over the ambulance and sets it alight, but Jonathan and his wife drive off without him, but while driving on the road Jonathan suddenly loses consciousness, they crash, the wife is alive but he has died, and Tom is seen sitting on the dock, while Minot watching him walks away. Also starring Nicholas Ray as Derwatt, Samuel Fuller as American mobster, Peter Lilienthal as Marcangelo, Daniel Schmid as Igraham, Jean Eustache as Friendly man, Rudolf Schündler as Gantner, Sandy Whitelaw as Doctor in Paris and Lou Castel as Rodolphe. Hopper is great as the American Friend of the title, i.e. a loner with crime connections, and Ganz is also great as the man slowly dying and committing acts against his morals for the money he needs for his family, the story does has a resemblance to Strangers on a Train in moments, I will admit I got confused in the tiniest moments, but overall there were some exciting and eye-catching sequences that grip you, and overall it is a very watchable crime drama. Very good!