The American Friend 2009

Tom Ripley, a wealthy American living in Hamburg, operates at the edge of the art world’s shadows, manipulating an intricate forgery scheme that pumps up auction prices for paintings that are freshly produced fakes, passed off as discoveries by an artist who faked his own death. The scheme spirals into a dangerous liaison when Ripley meets Jonathan Zimmermann, a skilled picture framer who has unknowingly handled one of the fakes and is dying of leukemia. The moment of their introduction is chilly and telling: Zimmermann refuses to shake Ripley’s hand, bluntly saying, “I’ve heard of you,” before walking away. The exchange sets a tone of wary tension that threads through the entire story.

Ripley’s calculus shifts when Raoul Minot, a French criminal, approaches him with a brutal proposition: murder an American gangster. Ripley declines the direct path of violence, yet his scheming mind pushes a more devious plan by nudging Minot to enlist Zimmermann. He seeds rumors about Zimmermann’s supposed rapid decline from illness, inflating the fear that the framer may be at the end of his days. Trust frays, and Minot, hungry for power and a payoff, lures Zimmermann into a deadly trap. Zimmermann, who has already been worn down by his illness and the pressures around him, travels to France with a single objective—the possibility of a second medical opinion—unaware that his fate has been rewritten by Ripley’s maneuvering and Minot’s greed.

In a bid to secure his wife Marianne and his son Daniel, Zimmermann agrees to shoot the gangster, a decision engineered by Minot through falsified medical results that make Zimmermann expect the worst. Ripley, meanwhile, moves like a puppeteer, visiting Zimmermann before and after the planned murder under the guise of acquiring a picture frame and, in the process, forming a fragile bond with the man who has become a tool in Ripley’s larger game. The two men begin to understand one another, even as Ripley’s own moral lines blur. The plan proceeds on a tense Paris Métro platform, and the consequences ripple outward as lives collide.

Minot returns to report his satisfaction with Zimmermann’s work, but his appetite for blood grows. He wants another hit—one that would ignite a gang war and place Zimmermann at the center of a dangerous crossfire. This time the target is an American gangster on an intercity express train, to be carried out with a garrote. Though the surge of danger nearly overwhelms Zimmermann, Ripley emerges from the shadows to save him, and the pair execute the second assassination together, disposing of both the body and a bodyguard from the train. Back in Hamburg, Ripley confesses his role in steering Zimmermann toward Minot, a confession that complicates their uneasy alliance. When Zimmermann tries to pay Ripley for the second hit, Ripley declines and pleads with him not to reveal what has happened.

The double life Ripley invents exacts a heavy toll on Zimmermann’s marriage. Marianne grows increasingly suspicious of the travel and the “treatments” that are cited to justify Zimmermann’s absence, and she eventually leaves with Daniel, forcing her husband into a breakdown that exposes the fragility of his world. Minot arrives with questions about a bombing at Zimmermann’s flat, and suspicion starts to mount. When Zimmermann reveals that “we” killed the man on the train, Minot suspects Ripley of double-crossing him, and the tension between them becomes a fuse for the film’s explosive finale.

Seeking resolution, Zimmermann summons Ripley to his mansion, where a tense showdown with approaching killers unfolds. The two men ambush and kill the American gangsters who arrive, while Minot, beaten and cornered, manages an escape amidst the chaos. Ripley heaps the bodies into the ambulance used by the gangsters and prepares to flee, but Marianne arrives with the truth about the fake medical reports. The trio—Ripley, Zimmermann, and Marianne—realize they must act quickly to evade the inevitable consequences of the deception they’ve woven.

In a climactic escape plan, they head toward the sea. Ripley remains in the ambulance, while Marianne drives an exhausted Zimmermann away in his car. On a remote beach, Ripley douses the ambulance in gasoline and sets it ablaze. Zimmermann, in the driver’s seat, speeds along the shore with Marianne, abandoning Ripley to his fate. The car careens, and Zimmermann loses consciousness, dying at the wheel as Marianne pulls the emergency brake and survives. In the final, bleak moment, Ripley watches from the periphery and murmurs a wry closure to himself: Oh well. We made it anyway, Jonathan. Be careful.

The film leaves viewers with a measured, unflinching portrait of ambition without scruples, where art, crime, loyalty, and personal ruin intertwine. It lingers on the cost of manipulation and the brittle threads that connect two men who never fully trust each other, even as they navigate a world built on deception, risk, and the constant possibility that tonight’s plan could be the last plan they’ll ever make.