THE TOURIST
THE TOURIST (Rated PG-13 for violence, some brief strong profanity): Holy moly, Batman, how did this bomb ever reach the screen? And why did it show up rather than "The King's Speech," "The Black Swan," "The Fighter," or any other film screened at this time to vie for Oscars?
Written & directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck backed (or yes-manned) by a couple of other guys. If it's supposed to be a crime thriller, it's a sorry disappointment. If it's meant to be a tongue-in-cheek satire or parody, it's an unmitigated flop.
From the first shots of Angelina Jolie, her head tilted in mysterious hauteur (constantly - to conceal her aging features? To suggest mystery & hauteur? or Or simply because the director & cameraman John Seale haven't the imagination to reveal any other variety in her features?) - as she walks a Parisian street, strutting mysteriously with great hauteur while squinty-eyed, mysterious (but not haughty) people observe her with endless astonishment.
Some of those people, by the way, her arch enemies - and there are dozens of them, coming out from anywhere - manipulate state-of-the-art spy devices & weaponry, never to any avail, never permeate her mysterious hauteur, nor does the unfortunate teacher from Wisconsin (Johnny Depp) who would like to think of himself as "different." He is foil to her and her mysterious hauteur, an "ordinary guy" to the hilt, completely lacking in either mystery nor hauteur) to become a patsy in a plot that Hitch could have turned into something entertaining.
Unfortunately, Donnersmarck ain't Hitch, though it's obvious that he's remarkably satisfied with his implausible script and ongoing flip-of-the-wrist "clever" devices with which he fills the 103-minutes of what is supposed to pass as - only he knows what - bumbling James Bond?
Plot? A tinsel-town classic. Our two leads meet on a train to Venice. She's the love of a man who has, who knows how, robbed millions - maybe billions - from a gangster, is now on the lam in a new disguise. She's to find someone who looks like his current face & stature, throw off a mob of gangsters (and an inept London crime solver) until they can safely get together again. On the train they play out what sounds like very bad Noel Coward as they exchange tidbits about one another. ("Was there no one in your life?" "There was." "What happened?" Long, long pause. "She left me.").
In Venice, she lures him into her posh life; the crooks & the police are incapable of penetrating and retrieving the moola, right down to the final improbable shootout routine. Guess who win out?
While most of the gangster stuff is played out, badly, for suspense & thrills, Donnersmarck tries for humor with equal inexperience - having the teacher, for example, practice his Spanish (thinking Italian), or hopping across roof tiles in pajamas or - still worse - forcing the pair to include themselves in a professional dance routine with suddenly unexplained proficiency.
Was Angelina forced to maintain that air of mysterious hauteur, was Depp forced to maintain the look of a puzzled, lugubrious nut, were all the rest - the good guys & the bad - supposed to be stupid, low key in voice, always evenly paced, flat, deliberately inept?
Venice, the luxurious hotels on the canal, within view of the Rialto Bridge, the capers through St. Mark's Square, the lingering shots of sunsets on the water - all almost make the film worth sitting through - almost.
Rumor has it that an erotic shower scene was shot, then scrapped. Pity. It might've generated a few minutes of interest. (Grade: D)
