The Tourist Review

• 9th Dec 2010

Two trends come together for the second time this year (Knight and Day being the first) in The Tourist.  It’s the Mr and Mrs Smith type meets the classy 50s spy movie feel much more in the vein of something Cary Grant would have been comfortable in.

Turns out Jolie’s English lady is on the run (make that posh lady stroll away) from the English authorities who are hoping that she will lead them to a mystery man responsible for liberating a home grown criminal of a rather large sum of money. Why he did this we don’t know. All we know is that her instructions are to find a patsy on her train from Paris to Venice to distract the authorities with. In doing so she finds Depp’s math’s teacher to tease and seduce.

Sadly, like that other film this year, The Tourist is a badly dated, edited and orchestrated an affair.  It is just a bit of a bore setting up a character we barely get to know in Jolie, except that she is bound to have some sort of a secret. Yes well don’t they all? The action in the film may have the soundtrack to back it, but it is so poorly constructed and shoddy editing kills any momentum it may have had. Add to that the fact we have seen many boat chases in Venice (and this one is particularly slow!) and men chasing each other across tiled roof tops before – it all starts to induce the yawns.

There is a good supporting cast with Paul Bettany playing the stressed copper on their tail; Timothy Dalton as his boss; and there is also room for Steven Berkoff and Rufus Sewell in more shadowy roles. Berkoff is probably (as usual) the one with the role that is at risk of going way over the top and yet he is oddly very restrained in his role. It’s nice to see him acting calm again, unlike his hilarious cameo earlier this year in 44 Inch Chest which made a greater impression in about a tenth of the time.

It is with our leads though, where the film rests.  Jolie has the posh English lady down well. She moves with grace, speaks eloquently (and does a better accent than most American actresses have tried) and yet there is something very stale about her character. It is quite possibly that we are not in the 50s anymore and are now less attracted to wealth, grace and posh accents. She may look lovely, but that’s about all you get is someone who walks and talks well. There is absolutely no sex appeal whatsoever to suggest that a man would suddenly just fall in love, no matter how out of his depth he may appear (and it is depth that is missing here between them). In fact the whole affair seems so dated that it is out of touch with reality and class. But when you see that Julian Fellowes had a hand in the script it all becomes painfully clear who may have thought they knew what would make for an appealing English lady. Sorry Julian, English lady-likes are incredibly dull and not remotely as interesting or seductive as you would have us believe.

This leaves us with Johnny Depp’s everyman… and boy does he save the film. It’s a slow start for him as the slightly nervous, yet calmly game sucker who is picked to come along for the ride, but as the film progresses, so do the one liners. His performance is so restrained from the likes we are used to seeing him in. It isn’t enough to carry the whole film but it does just about make it watchable.

It is also best viewed with all logic thrown out the window. Don’t try to piece things together or wonder how certain things come to be as it won’t make a hell of a lot of sense. There is far too much in the way of contrivance here and I hate to say it, predictability.

Steven Hurst