1977 · A · 2h 8min
Crime · Drama · Mystery · Thriller · Foreign Language
Crime · Drama · Mystery · Thriller · Foreign Language
English title The American Friend
Director Wim Wenders
Stars Dennis Hopper · Bruno Ganz · Lisa Kreuzer · Gérard Blain · Nicholas Ray · Samuel Fuller · Peter Lilienthal · Daniel Schmid
Based on Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith
Writer(s) Wim Wenders
Music by Jürgen Knieper
Release Date 26 March 1977 (Cannes)
Country of Origin West Germany · France
Language Spoken German · English · French
Sound Mix Mono Colour Colour Aspect Ratio 1.66 : 1
Budget DEM 3,000,000 ($1.74 million)
American expatriate Tom (Hopper) treats Hamburg, Germany, like it's the Wild West and makes a living by hawking art forgeries, but decides to take part in a murder plot for extra cash. All Tom has to do to earn his share is find a potential assassin who won't do any talking, and he has the perfect man: Jonathan (Ganz), a dying cancer patient desperate to leave his family an inheritance. Jonathan begrudgingly accepts, but he's no gunman, and the scheme quickly goes sour.
Polański-esque.
"Superb adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel Ripley's Game, with Hopper as her amiably cynical hero."
—Tom Milne, Time Out
"... only a filmmaker as humane as [director Wim Wenders] could recognize there's no way out of the story's moral corruption."
—Steve Erickson, RogerEbert.com