Film Review: The American Friend (Der amerikanische Freund, 1977)

Patricia Highsmith achieved literary fame with her debut novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), a success immortalised by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1951 adaptation. Yet, her enduring legacy is arguably the series of novels centred on the psychopathic, murdering social climber Tom Ripley. Over the decades, this amoral figure has attracted a number of filmmakers, yielding adaptations ranging from the sleek (Purple Noon) to the mainstream (The Talented Mr. Ripley). Nestled among these is one of the more unconventional and stylistically distinct interpretations: Wim Wenders’ The American Friend (1977). A West German production from the height of the New German Cinema, the film takes Highsmith’s third Ripley novel, Ripley’s Game (1974), and filters it through a distinctly European arthouse sensibility, resulting in a work that prioritises mood and cinematic homage over conventional thriller mechanics, for better and for worse.

The film is, as the user’s points suggest, a very loose adaptation. It transposes the core premise—a terminally ill man manipulated into committing murder for money—but liberally reinterprets character and setting. Ripley (Dennis Hopper) is introduced as a wealthy, vaguely bohemian conman dabbling in the art forgery trade alongside his friend, the painter “Derwatt” (played by director Nicholas Ray), who has faked his own death. The pivotal encounter occurs in Hamburg, where Ripley meets picture framer Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz). Zimmermann’s brusque refusal to shake hands, mistaken for snobbery, is later revealed to stem from his anxiety over a suspected blood disease. This slight, almost incidental, moment plants the seed for Ripley’s subsequent, deeply cynical manipulation.

The plot machinery grinds into motion when Ripley is approached by French gangster Raoul Minot (Gérard Blain). Minot requires a discreet assassin to eliminate an American rival and scoffs at Ripley’s suggestion of professional help. Ripley, in a moment of cold inspiration, proposes Zimmermann: a complete amateur, unknown to the criminal world, and therefore more likely to catch his target off-guard. To facilitate this, Ripley maliciously spreads rumours that Zimmermann’s condition is terminal. Minot then approaches the framer with an offer: a life-changing sum of money to secure the future of his wife, Maria (Lisa Kreuzer), and their son. To shatter Zimmermann’s hope, Minot orchestrates a trip to Paris for specialist tests, the results of which are, of course, falsified. This protracted, psychologically torturous setup forms the film’s lengthy first act.

Zimmermann, emotionally broken and financially desperate, eventually agrees. His first assassination in the Paris Métro is a masterfully executed sequence, a tense set-piece that stands out for its clinical precision and fascinating, almost documentary-like glimpse into 1970s video surveillance technology. Success, however, only begets further demand. Minot, delighted, insists on a second job on a train between Munich and Hamburg. Zimmermann boards the train in a state of nihilistic despair, his intentions arguably more suicidal than homicidal. It is here that the film introduces its central, peculiar moral twist: Ripley, who has developed a perverse fondness for Zimmermann, intervenes. In a chaotic and violently abrupt scene, he assists Zimmermann in dispatching the target and a bodyguard, transforming their relationship from one of predator-and-prey into a fractured, deadly partnership.

The consequences of this descent form the film’s final act. Zimmermann’s prolonged absences and erratic behaviour strain his marriage to breaking point, with Maria’s quiet desperation providing the narrative’s emotional anchor. Meanwhile, the criminal world reacts violently; Minot becomes a target, and Ripley himself is hunted. In a climax that borders on the self-parodically melodramatic, Ripley recruits Zimmermann to help ambush their pursuers at his Hamburg house, culminating in a showdown that feels both brutally sudden and oddly detached.

Judged purely by its plot—a story of manipulation, contract killing, and gangland retribution—one might expect The American Friend to be a hybrid of film noir and Hitchcockian thriller. Wenders’ stylistic choices, however, deliberately frustrate this expectation. The film functions less as a genre piece and more as an arthouse meditation on alienation, framed within a crime narrative. It is precisely the type of film that attracts rave reviews from cinephile critics for its ambition and style, while often leaving mainstream thriller audiences cold—a work that, to some, gave “cult film” a rather pretentious name.

Wenders, then at the zenith of his acclaim for road movies like Kings of the Road, fills the film with cinephiliac homages. It is dedicated to Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, and features cameos from legendary directors: Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller (as a mob boss), and Gérard Blain. The soundtrack is peppered with rock music cues. These elements create a thick atmosphere of referential cool, but they can also feel like a distraction from the undercooked narrative engine.

This points to the film’s core weakness: it is a definitive “slow burn.” An inordinate amount of time is spent establishing atmosphere and the uneasy dynamic between Ripley and Zimmermann, while crucial motivations remain opaque and plot details glossed over. The narrative only finds a compelling pulse in its second third with the Paris assassination sequence. The subsequent train assassination is chaotic to the point of confusion, and the final act’s violent melodrama feels unearned, tonally jarring with the contemplative mood that preceded it.

The characterisations are equally problematic. Dennis Hopper, an actor capable of embodying magnificently unhinged villains, is here uncharacteristically subdued, even blank. His Ripley is a collection of quirky mannerisms—a cowboy hat, sudden laughs, an affected drawl—behind which lies a void. The character’s motivations for initially ruining Zimmermann, and later saving him, are never satisfactorily explored, rendering him a cryptic plot device rather than a compelling anti-hero. He pales in comparison to the chilling ambivalence of Alain Delon, the anxious charm of Matt Damon, or the reptilian sophistication John Malkovich would later bring to the role.

Bruno Ganz, too, struggles to fully connect. His Zimmermann is a portrait of mounting panic and moral collapse, but the performance often remains internalised to a fault, creating a barrier to empathy. The audience is told of his desperation more than they are made to feel it. The film’s most effective human performance comes from Lisa Kreuzer as Maria. As the only true “normie” character, her quiet anguish, confusion, and resilience provide the emotional core the two lead men frequently obscure.

Where The American Friend unequivocally succeeds is in its visual texture. The cinematography by the great Robby Müller is stunning, bathing Hamburg, Paris, and New York in a palette of saturated, often neon-lit colours. The compositions are meticulously framed, turning urban landscapes into liminal spaces of existential unease. For fans of Wenders and students of 1970s European cinema, the film is a time capsule, offering authentic cityscapes, fashion, and a pervasive mood of post-war European melancholy.

Ultimately, as an exercise in suspense or a psychological thriller, The American Friend fails. Its pacing is lethargic, its character psychology vague, and its climax unsatisfying. It is, however, a fascinating and visually arresting failure—a work of directorial personality that uses Highsmith’s plot as a skeleton on which to hang its stylistic and thematic preoccupations. As a thriller, it is decidedly inferior to Liliana Cavani’s more faithful, taut, and psychologically acute 2002 adaptation, Ripley’s Game, which benefits immeasurably from John Malkovich’s definitive portrayal of Ripley’s chilling, aestheticised amorality. Wenders’ film remains a compelling curio, a landmark of style over substance that endures more as a snapshot of a directorial moment than as a successful entry in the Ripley cinematic canon.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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