sri-1

I don't write comments very often, but this time I had to add an opposite view to the quite homogeneous comments that all praise this movie. This movie's intentions are quite obvious - to make the audience cry - and the means by which they are or shall be achieved are probably copied directly from the book "emotion driven screen writing for dummies". Actually I think that the principal flaw lies within the screenplay. The dialogs the people are having, the life stories they have or tell about, the motivations by which they are driven seem to have been used in thousands of other movies. Therefore they seem flat and so cliché. Although the actors do a good job and the music is not bad either, the movie unfortunately remains pretentious kitsch for me. 5 out of 10.

I wasn't born yet when Martin Schleyer was kidnapped by RAF terrorists in 1977 and I didn't know much about terrorism in Germany's late 1970s. So on the one hand it was very interesting to learn about the "deutschen Herbst", the (bloody) second half of 1977 when the RAF declared German government the war. On the other hand it was a shocking and gripping documentary. I never thought a second about changing the channel and days after it I still thought about it. Especially decisions to risk lifes (this of Schleyer and these of the passengers in the kidnapped Boeing) to demonstrate strength of the own government are things, which I am happy I don't have to make.

First of all this movie has got great pictures and sound (as we know it from the English Patient) but we also have fascinating characters that stand in contrast to each other. On the one hand we have Dickie Greenleave living his life on the sunny side of the street, being loved or liked by everybody and on the other side Tom Ripley, talented in many ways, seeing what he never would be able to reach. He just wants that this part of his life with his great, admired friend would never stop. But thats impossible. Anthony Minghella has made one of my absolute favorites out of the Highsmith novel.

As I already mentioned, also the soundtrack (Dickies music - Jazz on the one hand and Toms music - Classical on the other hand) is wonderful impressing.