THE AMERICAN FRIEND (2003)

Twenty-two years before Anthony Minghella spurred a Ripley revival, German director Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) adapted Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game into a French-flavored thriller about friendship, isolation, and its own moody self. As Ripley, Hopper -- amounting to a mannered cackle in a cowboy hat -- gets Ganz's terminally ill family man mixed up in murder. Apart from the swanky action scenes, any suspense is diffused by a running essay on filmmaking (pointless cameos by Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller), and the Highsmith tightrope goes slack.