Pulp thriller version of the Faust-Mephistopheles myth, based on the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith, and directed by Wim Wenders. On one level, it's a withering critique of the male camaraderie ethic (with friends like this, who needs enemies?). On another, it's a conventional underworld adventure refreshingly infused with road-movie restlessness and aimlessness (it has three ingeniously designed and agonizingly drawn-out action sequences, but outside of those, it wanders the bleak territory between Weltschmerz and despair). On still another, it's a glib political commentary on America's depredation of postwar Europe. Dennis Hopper, in a weather-beaten Stetson, is the psychopathic American cowboy (a too intellectualized character), and Bruno Ganz (anomie personified) is the humble Hamburg picture framer whom Hopper lassoes into moonlighting as a paid assassin. With Nicholas Ray and Sam Fuller. (1977) — Duncan Shepherd
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