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Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, an acclaimed director and the beautiful city of Venice: what could possibly go wrong? The producers of The Tourist must have asked this question when the idea landed on their doorsteps of a fast paced, romantic adventure with the added bonus of spies, gangsters and guns. Unfortunately, they came to the wrong conclusion, and, as time has revealed again and again in movies, a lot can always go wrong.
As plots go, mistaken identity must be one of the oldest: Hitchcock certainly loved it and, inevitably, it has reappeared. Here, Angelina Jolie meets Johnny Depp’s travelling maths teacher on a train to Venice, only for him to be confused with international criminal Alexander Peirce and hunted by Paul Bettany’s obsessive Interpol agent and some rather vicious gangsters led by Steven Berkoff. Despite what may appear to be an excellent cast, though, things start to go wrong very quickly. Depp and Jolie simply do not work as a romantic couple, lacking in chemistry and utterly failing to convince, while Paul Bettany, who needs to prove himself after the abysmal Legion, is given no room to manoeuvre and his role falls flat and fails to engage. The only actors who come off well are Timothy Dalton, whose tiny role is really quite watchable, and Berkoff’s vile villain, who successfully in a few short scenes becomes by far the most interesting thing about the film. It’s hard to criticise the actors too much, however, as they are dealing with a ridiculously unbelievable script, which is hard to predict but only because of how incompetent it seems. Even this wouldn’t doom the film, however, were it not for the fact that its tone goes all over the place, tossing and turning all too sharply from comic to darkly serious.
As for director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, it’s easy to see why he jumped at the chance to make The Tourist. Coming off the back of just one film to the glamour of Hollywood must have seemed a truly irresistible offer. However, somehow during the journey he seems to have lost his skill: his brilliant debut, The Lives of Others, was one of the finest thrillers of the last decade, bringing the world of surveillance to the audience as a dark and fascinating obsession. Here, there is also a large amount of surveillance activity going on, though this seems remarkably dull and boring, and it feels like someone completely different was involved. The director’s talent serves only to Venice look nice, which is hardly a great challenges and it’s been done better before.
The Tourist disappoints on almost every level, with bad acting, uninteresting characters, an incompetent script, and a tone that goes up and down like a see-saw. Despite this, it’s certainly not one of the worst films of the year – it is watchable, but an enormous disappointment that is inexcusable considering the talent involved. We can only be hoped Donnersmark returns to Germany suitably chastised and goes back to working properly.
See The Tourist at City Screen.
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