The film begins with the financial crimes unit of Scotland Yard trailing Elise Ward (Angelina Jolie), the most beautiful, confident, and well-attired woman in the world. Possessing the beauty of a goddess and a look that screams “I will never have sex with you,” Elise is trying to throw the cops off her trail so that they’ll stop chasing her husband, Alexander Pierce, a mob banker who stole billions from his boss. The British government is in on the chase because 744 million of that amount belonged to them (why the mobster has that money is never explained). Despite their surveillance, Pierce is still easily able to communicate with Elise through letters and he informs her that she needs to find a stranger with his height and build so that the cops (who don’t know what Pierce looks like) will trail the poor stranger. It’s an elaborate set-up for what seems like a minor diversion.
On a train from Paris to Venice, Elise chooses her stooge by sitting across from Frank (Johnny Depp), Wisconsin’s handsomest yet charmingly-befuddled community college math teacher. Frank is, naturally, beguiled by the mysterious Elise but it turns out that the cops aren’t the only one after Pierce. The mobster (Steven Berkoff) and his goons are also chasing down Pierce and because of a case of mistaken identity, they’re now after poor Frank. It’s a charming premise that begins to lose steam as director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck seems more interested in capturing the beauty of Venice rather than developing the characters or devising exciting chase scenes.
But up until the twist, The Tourist is a satisfactory diversion. While the visuals make The Tourist ultimately feel more like a tourism video for Venice (provided you’re ridiculously wealthy) than an attempt to better tell the story, Depp and Jolie acquit themselves well at their roles. Jolie’s confidence is staggering and you can see the joy Elise takes in grabbing an entire room’s attention with nothing more than a grin. It’s also nice to see Depp playing an everyman rather than the bizarre outsider he usually portrays. Frank is a charming character and he gets solid laughs every time he speaks Spanish as if it were Italian.
The film begins with the financial crimes unit of Scotland Yard trailing Elise Ward (Angelina Jolie), the most beautiful, confident, and well-attired woman in the world. Possessing the beauty of a goddess and a look that screams “I will never have sex with you,” Elise is trying to throw the cops off her trail so that they’ll stop chasing her husband, Alexander Pierce, a mob banker who stole billions from his boss. The British government is in on the chase because 744 million of that amount belonged to them (why the mobster has that money is never explained). Despite their surveillance, Pierce is still easily able to communicate with Elise through letters and he informs her that she needs to find a stranger with his height and build so that the cops (who don’t know what Pierce looks like) will trail the poor stranger. It’s an elaborate set-up for what seems like a minor diversion.
On a train from Paris to Venice, Elise chooses her stooge by sitting across from Frank (Johnny Depp), Wisconsin’s handsomest yet charmingly-befuddled community college math teacher. Frank is, naturally, beguiled by the mysterious Elise but it turns out that the cops aren’t the only one after Pierce. The mobster (Steven Berkoff) and his goons are also chasing down Pierce and because of a case of mistaken identity, they’re now after poor Frank. It’s a charming premise that begins to lose steam as director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck seems more interested in capturing the beauty of Venice rather than developing the characters or devising exciting chase scenes.
But up until the twist, The Tourist is a satisfactory diversion. While the visuals make The Tourist ultimately feel more like a tourism video for Venice (provided you’re ridiculously wealthy) than an attempt to better tell the story, Depp and Jolie acquit themselves well at their roles. Jolie’s confidence is staggering and you can see the joy Elise takes in grabbing an entire room’s attention with nothing more than a grin. It’s also nice to see Depp playing an everyman rather than the bizarre outsider he usually portrays. Frank is a charming character and he gets solid laughs every time he speaks Spanish as if it were Italian.
