The Tourist
PLOT (spoiler alert!!!):
The movie opens with Elise (Angelina Jolie) being followed by French police, working with Scotland Yard under the direction of Inspector John Acheson (Paul Bettany). Acheson has spent years attempting to catch Elise’s old lover, Alexander Pearce, who owes £744 million in back taxes. While at a cafe, Elise receives instructions from Pearce: board a train to Venice, pick out a man on the way who resembles Pearce, and trick the police into believing that this decoy is the man himself. Elise follows the instructions, picking Frank (Johnny Depp), an American tourist. She spends much time with him, seeming to start a romance. The police recognize the ruse, but it does fool Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff), a gangster from whom Pearce stole $2.3 billion.
Pearce leaves further instructions for Elise to attend a ball. Elise abandons Frank, who is then chased by Shaw’s men. Through a mishap Frank is arrested by the police, only to have a corrupt inspector attempt to turn him over to Shaw’s men in exchange for the bounty on Pearce’s head. During the transaction Elise rescues Frank, leading Shaw’s men on an extended chase and eventually escaping. Afterward she leaves Frank at the airport with his passport and a satchel full of money, asking him to go home for his own safety.
Elise is revealed to be an undercover agent sent to catch Pearce, who may have instead become his ally. Because of her fears for Frank, she comes back to her role as Scotland Yard agent, and sets up a sting against Pearce. Frank, apparently newly in love with Elise, has not left, and worms his way in, upsetting the plan. When Frank is pulled out by the police, Elise goes after Pearce to a new rendezvous point. The other agents follow with Frank aboard, but Shaw is following even more closely. When Elise arrives at the destination, Shaw moves in, takes her prisoner, and threatens her with disfigurement or death unless she finds and opens a safe containing his stolen money. Despite Elise’s peril, Inspector Acheson repeatedly turns down police requests to intervene, convinced that Pearce will show. Frank escapes police custody and confronts Shaw, posing as Pearce and using information previously shared by Elise to convince Shaw that he is truly Alexander Pearce. Ultimately, Chief Inspector Jones (Timothy Dalton) arrives and orders police snipers to fire, killing Shaw and his men. Jones lifts Elise’s suspension, but then terminates her employment.
After the confrontation, the police run out to chase a possible sighting of Pearce. Frank then opens the safe, with only Elise present, demonstrating that he knew the safe combination, and was, in fact, Alexander Pearce the entire time, and had been in control all along. He and Elise take the money and run away, leaving behind a check for the balance of his taxes owed. Acheson wants to pursue him, but Jones determines that with the taxes paid, Pearce’s only crime is that he stole money from a now dead gangster. Jones orders the case to be closed. Frank and Elise then sail away.
REVIEW:
When this film was in production, much was made about how Angelina Jolie was going to take Johnny Depp from his wife and children and leave Brad Pitt. You know how tabloids like to fabricate stories and such.
With those stories, though, The Tourist had a mediocre box office showing and received mostly negative reviews. So, the question is…how will I rate this film, eh?
I’m no fan of Jolie, at least not since her Tomb Raider days when she actually had some meat on her bones. Having said that, she looked the better here than she has in years. It might be the whole British thing she had going. It really worked for her, plus, I think directors have told her she’s too skinny and she’s finally starting to listen.
Johnny Depp takes a break from being Captain Jack Sparrow, though he does go into his British accent a couple of times in the film, to play this role as an American tourist/ math teacher who has recently lost his wife. I’ll admit it was a bit strange seeing him out of “character” for the first time in forever, but it was nice to get a bit of a change. Sometimes we forget that Depp is a competent actor.
Jolie and Depp start out as two strangers meeting on a train, and their chemistry throughout feels like they are just two strangers uncomfortably making small talk. I expected more. This may go back to that whole think about Jolie trying to steal Depp, but who knows.
Paul Bettany and Timothy Dalton are supporting characters here, but to be honest, neither really brings anything to the table. I fond it odd that Bettany was cast in a role that cold very well have been played by some cheaper actor, who may or may not have done better with it. To me, it seems as if Bettany’s role would have been fleshed out a bit more.
Rufus Sewell makes this random appearance in the film. I’m not sure if he was meant to be a cameo or if perhaps he just wanted a quick paycheck and was asked to do these two scenes, bt it actually made no sense for him to have been there, when they cold have gotten some extra to do his role, seriously!
The action in the film isn’t bad, but for a spy film, which is what this actually is under all the murkiness of the convoluted plot. I think they cold have done a bit more in the climax, but that’s a personal preference.
I mentioned that Jolie and Depp have no chemistry, and that is very apparent in the ballroom scene, which was already supposed to look uncomfortable. Ironically, that might very well have been their best scene together.
The score to this film left me scratching my head. It seemed to be light-hearted and fun, much in the same way as the first two Harry Potter films. My issue with that is it doesn’t fit with the tone of the film, at least not for most of it, anyway.
I put my hatred of Jolie and my man-crush of Depp aside when I was watching this flick. I don’t think it helped any, though. Fact of the matter is, while this isn’t anywhere near as bad as the critics wold have you believe, The Tourist just doesn’t live up to what it could be. I can recommend this, but be warned that it is nothing more than an average flick with overpriced stars.
3 out of 5 stars
