Starring : Angeline Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Steven Berkoff
Rating : 3.5/5
The Tourist starts off with our introduction to Elise Ward (Angelina Jolie), in Paris currently and being followed by the Parisian & British police. The reason for the attention – Elise is the lady love of now-missing tax-fraudster Alexander Pierce. Elise, well aware of the surveillance, picks a fall guy to divert attention. On a train from Paris to Venice, she chats up a random person, picked because he has a build similar to Alexander’s. The guy picked, Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp) tourist and American school-teacher, is smitten with the mysterious beautiful woman who offers him her friendship and her hotel room, and does not realize until too late, that the police and a mobster, whom Pierce has wronged, are now out to get him . . .
This film was fairly engaging, but not, by any means, a whopping success. The premise is interesting enough with all its twists and turns, land and water chases and the almost-about-to-appear mystery man. The story is a tad sketchy, and hole-ridden, and Donnersmarck can’t quite get the plausibility across. So it sits on me rather like a masala Bollywood film would – yes, you have the siren, and the mobster and the bad guy who might not be so bad, but it does take some suspension of belief to get into the mood.
Jolie and Depp, paired together as romantic leads, don’t smolder on screen. (If there were any sparks they were probably doused by the excess facial hair Depp, as Frank, sported.) They do well enough; she, with her perpetually tip-tilted chin, red-carpet attitude and the sultry seductress routine is believable as the mobster’s moll, and he, as understated Frank is quite the improbable action-man (as required). Despite that, I’m left a little cold as far as rooting for the characters is concerned. Elise is mysterious, adding to the intrigue, but it is hard to see her execute physically demanding tasks in 5 inch heels, diamonds and perfectly set hair. And Frank, forced to run from people he does not know, bumbles along, but does not exude the charisma required for an arresting leading man.
Paul Bettany stars as the London Metropolitan Inspector John Acheson, hot on Pearce’s trail. Timothy Dalton is Inspector Jones and Steven Berkoff rounds off the impressive supporting cast as mobster Reginald Shaw. The film is beautifully shot in Paris and Venice. Despite its enviable star-cast, larger-than-life gangster drama, and lovely locales, this film can’t quite get it’s mojo on.
If you’re out of films, this one might do on a Friday. But if you have a better alternative, take it.
