The Tourist

For some reason with so much star power and Oscar winners working on the script I somehow expected more from this movie. But now it seems the reason this movie was signed on by so many was for a paid vacation to Venice. Not to say I blame them, but I would hesitate before I indulge their fantasies, unless of course you want to get away a little yourself.

This is a classic tale of a female temptress and a bumbling hero. Angelina Jolie fills the role, and every part of her dresses, perfectly. While there aren't too many wide shots of Venice there are plenty of Jolie posing and strutting from place to place, which seemed to be the only requirement for this role. She is not asked to show off any of her acting in this one, but rather just allow the camera to follow her, both the movie's camera and the ones from the surveillance teams that are following her.

Johnny Depp plays a math teacher from Wisconsin who gets caught up in the whole game by looking similar to the man that everyone is trying to find. Happens to me all the time, they tell me George don’t you have to get ready for your show in LA, I’m quick to clarify. For a role that requires him to jump into a canopy and subsequently into a fruit cart he plays this role pretty straight, and takes it probably more serious than he should.

The supporting cast all fall into cliché parts. From the cops that are after them to the mobsters who want all their money back. Both sides of the law seem to have the aim of stormtroopers, so it is very clear that no one at any point in this movie is in any real danger. The most telling part of their acting is the nonchalance these characters take to capturing the two leads, which reflects the effort put in by the people who wrote the script.

I could go into what happens in the movie, but it doesn’t seem to be all that important to the people who worked on it, so why should you concern yourself with it. The script was written by Oscar winners all around which makes me wonder what happened. The screenplay is done by Christopher McQuarrie and Julian Fellows who won Oscars for their writing of "The Usual Suspects" and "Gosford Park" respectively. And the director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarch, just won an Oscar in 2007 for best foreign film. My theory is they are using these awards as paper weights to keep all the money they got for this movie from flying away.

I'm not entirely sure what this movie wants to be, I'm not sure if they are trying to make this an amazing action movie, a farce, or one that keeps you guessing throughout the movie. In all honesty the movie fails in all of these categories. Fail may actually be too strong a word, in all actuality the movie just doesn't succeed. But on the plus side for the cast and crew they did get a paid trip to Venice. D