The Tourist

The Tourist
Directed by: Florian Heckel von Donnersmark (no, seriously. Look it up.)
Cast: Johnny Depp as Frank Tupelo
Angelina Jolie as Elise Clifton-Ward
Paul Bettany as Inspector John Acheson
Timothy Dalton as Chief Inspector Jones
Rated: PG-13

*The following may contain spoilers*

Overview
"It all started when he met a woman..."
Frank Tupelo is an American tourist, exploring the beauty of Italy. As Frank zips through the countryside, a beautiful woman on the train sits down next to him. She introduces herself as Elise and the two talk the rest of the trip and Elise invites him to her hotel room. A stunned Frank accepts her offer, unaware of the chaos that is about to ensue....

Positive Attributes
Frank cares deeply for Elise, and she appears to care for him as well. Both risk their lives to save the other. Elise even tries to ditch Frank so that he will stay safe.

Negative Attributes
Elise's love interest, a mysterious man named Alexander Pearce, is a thief who stole $224 million euros from the British government, using Elise and Frank in his plot to avoid the government.
*SPOILER* Elise is an officer in the British government who went rogue for a year after getting close to Frank. Due to her mixed emotions, she makes some rather unethical decisions throughout the film. In the end, her government uses her as bait to lure Pearce, even to the point of threatening her life.
Elise and Frank kiss passionately, though Elise says it is to fool the agents who are following them.

Summary
This movie was extremely difficult to review, as you might have been able to tell. The whole plot was centered around an upcoming, yet obvious twist, thus making it hard to discuss without giving anything away. As such, this summary will also be rather difficult.

The Tourist is a very telling example of almost all the movies that are released these days. Like most "thrillers" with a "plot twist", Tourist was easy to watch, predictable and over-explained every plot point. Apparently, Hollywood now has a "no-idiot-left-behind" program. As a result, every movie is spoon-fed to us with no real thought needed while watching them. Like I said, Tourist fails to break that mold.

While Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp both perform well, the script was off, its pacing weird and the superstar balance just wasn't there.

*Spoiler Alert*
The major plot twist was that Frank turns out to be Pearce, who has undergone massive facial reconstruction.
My main problem with this twist is that it was all hinted at throughout the movie; the government mentioned facial reconstruction and they thought Frank was Pearce the whole time.

An even bigger hole is the fact that it is made abundantly clear that there are no actual photos of Pearce, only sketches. So, this raises the question of why did facial reconstruction even need to be a part of it. In theory, the whole plot could have been pulled off without any obscure, multi-million dollar surgery. Similarly, Elise did not know that Frank was Pearce, which also seemed pointless.

In my mind, the overall weak movie that is The Tourist could have been a much better movie if a) there was no facial reconstruction in the story at all and b) Elise had known the whole time, making the whole thing to be a scam to get away with the money.

That's enough of my rant. To finish up, Tourist originally had a lot of potential but was ruined in the final script. In the end, this movie is definitely not worth paying full price to see. If anything, wait until it's on DVD and give your money to Redbox.

Personal Rating: 4 of 10
Plot: 4
Sexuality/Sensuality: 1
Drugs/Alcohol: 1 (wine is consumed.)