When the film starts we are introduced to Jolie’s character Elise Clifton-Ward as she platform walks through the streets of Paris. At first glance it might seem like you’ve stumbled into another Mannequin sequel, but no; this is a spy movie and Jolie’s character is supposed to be a real woman. Every move that Elise makes is shadowed by British authorities, as her ex boyfriend Alexander Pearce owes quite a hefty sum of back taxes on the billions of dollars that he stole from a big time gangster (Steven Berkoff). Apparently British law dictates that you pay taxes on money that you have stolen. Pearce is an enigmatic guy. No pictures of him exist, nobody seems to be sure who he really is, and Elise seems to be the only avenue anyone can think to travel down in hopes of finding him. While sitting in a Parisian café she is passed a letter from Pearce telling her to board a train to Venice and befriend a man of his height and build as to trick the authorities into believing that it’s him. This man turns out to be hapless Wisconsinite math teacher Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp), and from this point forward he is thrust into various fish out of water scenarios involving running, gunfire, gangsters, and Scotland Yard. I feel stupid even recapping this setup, because it doesn’t go anywhere, no thought was put into it, and it exists only as a haphazardly scribbled excuse to film a couple of movie stars in pretty places. Nor is any of the action or danger in the film treated with any gravity. We never get a sense that there’s any stakes in the goings on. Nobody ever appears to be in any real danger. This doesn’t even seem like the real world that we live in, just an exaggerated, idealized version of it. I can hardly understand why this film’s plot deals in international espionage at all. They should have just gone all out and made Jolie’s character a Disney Princess and Depp’s the common man who has to win his way into the court in order to win her favor. That would have, at least, been an honest approach to the material. The spy movie tropes come off as being inserted only as a cynical way to trick male audiences into the theater.
At its core, The Tourist is betting the farm on the fact that its audience will have a big enough crush on either Depp or Jolie to watch and enjoy anything that they are in. Both actors have big, ferociously loyal fan bases, and I can actually see that working for a select few people. But for me, this didn’t even come close to being a success. The most egregious of the pornography scenes came when Depp and Jolie turned down to go to bed their first night together in their posh Venetian hotel. We get a back and forth montage sequence of the two of them getting ready for bed, Jolie in the grand bedroom and Depp on the couch in the living room. She changes into a silk nightgown, he into a pair of button up, pinstripe jammies. The camera lingers on Jolie’s curves and Depp’s quirks to the point of obscenity. In a competent film this would come 3/4ths of the way into the story, after we’ve become enamored with the characters and their inherent differences. Here we are shown these intimate moments almost immediately after we’ve met them. Instead of building a proper story, the filmmakers are just banking on the fact that everyone is already in love with the public personas of the stars. The director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and his army of screenwriters should watch It Happened One Night and then burn every copy of this film that exists. And to top it all off, the lack of chemistry between these two is amazing. It’s not even that they don’t work well together; they don’t even belong in the same film. These two actors and the personas they have created don’t exist in the same cinematic worlds whatsoever. Jolie and her icy faced approach to making big budget blockbusters and Depp’s exaggerated manner of submersing himself in absurdist roles don’t have any business crossing over in any circumstance. I imagine this lack of chemistry is the result of the casting process. Did Depp and Jolie have to do screen tests together before this film was made? Did either of them audition? Given their statures I can’t imagine they did, but those processes exist for a reason that seems to have been lost on the makers of this abomination.
For full disclosure, I should point out that I have never got the Angelina Jolie thing. She’s not an unattractive person to say the least, but when every guy and every artsy girl who is trying to convince you that she’s a lesbian I’ve ever met drones on and on about how she is the sexiest person in the world I just don’t understand it. She has no life in her. She has no unique little features that might be endearing. The same way that I could see the production of this film being done by a computer rather than a human I could see the creation of Angelina Jolie as being a lab experiment rather than a miracle of nature. And the way the director had every single male extra in this film whip his head around, slack his jaw, and gape whenever Jolie robotically walked by was completely over the top and annoying. I get it, the character is supposed to be gorgeous. That should be inherent in watching the film. If you have to keep hitting me over the head with the idea then something is wrong. There are times in this film when Jolie doesn’t even look like a human girl so much as she does a Real Doll. I guess that’s fine if your ultimate fantasy is a flawless construct, but give me something with a little character and charm. If I had to choose between Jolie’s flawless statue in this film and Shirley McClain’s broken but organic and real heroine in The Apartment I wouldn’t have to hesitate for a second. And I don’t claim to have seen Jolie’s entire catalogue, but has she ever actually engaged herself in any role or does she always just detachedly present herself like she’s above the material and above humanity like has been my experience with her? When you factor in that the plot of this film requires Elise to be a callous sociopath who willfully puts an innocent man in constant mortal danger and we’re asked to instantly forgive her for it, there wasn’t much chance that I was going to walk away from this one feeling anything for the female lead. The irredeemable flaws inherent in her character are worse than Pretty Woman bad.
Depp isn’t actively annoying in his role, but due to inherent flaws in the script he doesn’t seem to have any idea what his character is supposed to be. Frank is a Chinese puzzle box of a character to approach due not to his complexity, but to his completely idiot conception. To give away many of the details of who he is and why there would be no consistent way to approach his character given the lazy, wrongheaded way this film is constructed would be to spoil the entire third act; but suffice to say there was no way that Depp could have appropriately portrayed this character. He was set up to fail. There is a glimmer of a relatable plot thread with him: that he is a person who craves art, intellect, and adventure, but is generally stuck in a mundane life in middle America; but it never ends up paying off due to the way the film develops. I will admit that I was kind of amused at the way he kept trying to speak Spanish to the Italians. I would do the same thing if I were desperate and stranded in Venice. Stupid Americans.
There is just so much not to like about this film that I don’t know what to mention. Maybe the most blatantly annoying thing about it is the score. The music is all magical and elegant. It feels like the sort of thing that would back a fancy costume ball. When it is plopped in the middle of this espionage story it is head-scratchingly weird. It works for all of the moments where nothing more is happening in the film other than Jolie walking in a new outfit, but everywhere else it had me throwing my hands up and looking around to see if anyone else was totally weirded out by what we were hearing. There is a pivotal action scene where Depp’s character is being chased across the rooftops of Venice by a couple of gangsters that was embarrassing. The shoddy special effects and the over the top nature of the entire conceit came together to create a perfect storm of cringe worthy stupidity. While watching it I found myself asking what year it was. Did I somehow stumble my way into a showing of a screwball comedy from the early nineties? There were times during this film where I felt like I was watching Hudson Hawk; none more blatant than the out of nowhere synchronized dance number that shows up in the third act. The tone is so all over the place that it might as well be dressed like Where’s Waldo.
Despite everything that I didn’t like about this movie I was prepared to give it two stars. Yes, it’s shallow, and yes it’s generally poorly made; but think of the audience. There is a group of people out there that is delighted by the familiar. I heard a few of them reacting positively in my theater. Despite the fact that neither of them are at their best in these roles, there is a group of people who will squeal in delight at just the opportunity to see Johnny Depp or Angelina Jolie up on the big screen. And Paris and Venice are two of the most beautiful locations that you could set a film, and they’re both at least competently shot here. I thought that was enough to give this one a little credit. And then we got to the plot twist. The Tourist probably has the most insultingly stupid plot twist that I’ve ever seen in a film. And I’ve seen a lot of insultingly stupid plot twists over the years. Not only does it throw away what little bits of characterization the film was able to accomplish in the favor of having a surprise, it very blatantly contradicts things that you’ve seen and doesn’t end up making any sense whatsoever in the process. And to say that the twist is a surprise is very generous in and of itself. The only thing surprising about the plot twist at the heart of this film is that the screenwriters were cynical enough to include it. It takes what was already a bad movie and turns it into a horrible one by hoping that its audience is stupid enough to not notice that their script makes no sense. Attention Hollywood: we’re not THAT stupid. Not yet.
