Highsmith's novel was previously adapted in 1977 as The American Friend by director Wim Wenders, starring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz.

Invited by a neighbour to a party, Ripley overhears the host, Jonathan Trevanny, insulting his taste and alluding to his shady reputation.

Believing Trevanny, a law-abiding art framer who is dying of leukemia, to be an assassin, Reeves offers him the job for a large fee.

Reeves ignores Ripley's warnings to keep a low profile, fearing that the Mafia will seek reprisal for the killing and deduce who was involved.

The website's consensus reads: "Led by a suitably slimy performance from John Malkovich, Ripley's Game brings Patricia Highsmith's bestselling sociopath brilliantly to life.

He wrote Malkovich is "precisely the Tom Ripley I imagine when I read the novels," praising what he felt to be "one of [his] most brilliant and insidious performances; a study in evil that teases the delicate line between heartlessness and the faintest glimmers of feeling.

"[5] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing: "John Malkovich, oozing danger and sinister charm, gives one of the year’s most memorable and mesmerizing performances in Ripley’s Game... Malkovich oils himself around the plot – icy cool one moment, blazingly violent the next – with a master's finesse.

"[6] David Rooney of Variety wrote "Malkovich's elegantly malicious performance gives Ripley's Game a magnetic center, complemented by Liliana Cavani's efficient direction and an enjoyable retro feel that recalls the British Cold War thrillers of the 1960s.

Club wrote "Ripley's Game fatally lacks the squirmy, desperate humanity that made Wenders' take on the same material so hauntingly tragic.

Like Malkovich's suavely generic international criminal, it's all craft and no soul, with complexity and depth functioning as collateral damage for its slick thriller mechanics.