Plot: Tom Ripley has a sweet deal with an art forger. The forger creates the paintings; Tom sells them. But another criminal business associate wants Tom to go in for an even riskier enterprise: murder. Tom suggests his associate ask a local picture framer instead. That man has a fatal disease, or so it's rumored. More, he has a wife and kid that surely he wouldn't want to leave penniless. Let this picture framer be a hit man, and no one will suspect. The terminally ill craftsman may agree to the misdeed, and several more, but he'll end up needing Tom Ripley in a pinch.
Alternative Plot: American expatriate Tom (Dennis Hopper) treats Hamburg, Germany, like it's the Wild West and makes a living by hawking art forgeries, but decides to take part in a murder plot for extra cash. All Tom has to do to earn his share is find a potential assassin who won't do any talking, and he has the perfect man: Jonathan (Bruno Ganz), a dying cancer patient desperate to leave his family an inheritance. Jonathan begrudgingly accepts, but he's no gunman, and the scheme quickly goes sour.
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