In the first of an ongoing series, James Gates takes potshots at acclaimed entities which, deep down, the rest of us are too afraid to admit are not actually not that great. This week: 1999 Oscar bait The Talented Mr Ripley. Spoilers ahead, though you needn’t worry about them as it’s a shit film anyway.
What makes a film suck? Could it be shitty acting? A bad screenplay? Ropey special effects? No, dear reader, it is none of these things. A film’s component parts do not always dictate the quality of the final product and, if made with love, even the scruffiest of efforts can shine (see; Star Wars, Dawn Of The Dead, Mean Streets, etc). A crap film is one that is convinced of its superiority, its sheer class, its effortless classicism when in reality it is the celluloid equivalent of piss in a champagne bottle.
With that in mind, I put it to you that The Talented Mr Ripley, a film that positively sweats with a need to be liked, is the greatest atrocity ever committed against modern cinema. And that includes Meet The Spartans.
For starters, we have Matt Damon playing an unlikeable cunt for two hours. Added to that, we have Jude Law (reasonably talented in other films) playing an unlikeable pretty boy. And added to THAT we have the wheat-free giraffe herself, Gwyneth Paltrow, as a pathetic love interest that no-one cares about.
We spend two hours watching in horror as the film masturbates itself into a narcissistic froth with its oh-so-sumptuous settings and try-hard dialogue before engaging in the most unbelievable suspension-of-belief device EVER when Matty-boy convinces both Cate Blanchett (who we can forgive for appearing in this as she was young and needed the work) and the rest of Venice that he is the IMAGE of just-murdered Jude Law. “What the FUCK!?!”, cry audiences around the world.
And to add insult to injury, after spending 120 minutes being told that, yes, horrible people can get away with anything if they think on their feet, the film doesn’t even bother with an ENDING. All we get is the sound of a man being strangled to death, perhaps an indication of what we the viewer would do if we ever got our hands on the people responsible for this wreck, this abomination, this gleaming nightmare of a film.
It took away two hours of my life and all it left me with was a small, black, cancerous ball of hatred in my gut. If you ever meet anyone who enjoyed it, you have my permission to rub salt in their eyes. A harsh penalty, perhaps, but one that is no worse then having to sit through The Talented Mr Ripley.
Worst movie ever.
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