Ripley Under Ground (film)

Ripley Under Ground (also known as White on White) is a 2005 German-British-French crime thriller film directed by Roger Spottiswoode and based on the 1970 second novel in Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley series. It stars Barry Pepper as Ripley and features Willem Dafoe, Alan Cumming and Tom Wilkinson in supporting roles. "Ripley Under Ground" was produced during July and August 2003, but was only released two years later. The film was shown on the 2005 AFI Fest by American Film Institute, receiving a low-profile wide theatrical release.
Plot summary.
After his friend, a successful young artist, is killed in a car accident, Tom Ripley (Pepper) and his friends hide his body and concoct a scheme in which they forge his paintings, eventually making a great deal of money. When an art collector (Dafoe) complains that a painting he bought from the gallery is a fake, Ripley must use his inimitable talents to defuse the problem by whatever means necessary.
Release and reception.
The film received a wide theatrical release on 6 November 2005, as well as being shown at the AFI Fest film festival in Los Angeles. It was released on DVD on 24 July 2007 in the Netherlands.
Given the film's low-profile release, critical reviews have been scarce. "Variety"'s review was less than positive, saying: "Although it strives to push Patricia Highsmith's best-known bad man in a snarky direction, "Ripley Under Ground" is too fidgety and unsure to settle on a sustained tone and ends up in a no man's land between hysterical satire and sleek Euro thriller. As previous filmic Ripleys demonstrated, from "Purple Noon" and "The American Friend" to "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Ripley's Game", it's all in the casting, and the talented Mr. Barry Pepper is not capable of pulling off the demonically complicated and murderous con artist."