The Tourist
starring Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Steven Berkoff and Timothy Dalton
screenplay by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Christopher McQuarrie and Julian Fellowes
directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
This is a wonderful thriller/spy tale. It’s a familiar formula: an innocent bystander - an American schoolteacher sightseeing in Europe - accidentally gets involved in an international crime chase. Not espionage, but money laundering, in this case. It’s a case of mistaken identity. He’s like a fish out of water in a world he didn’t create, and doesn’t understand why bad guys are trying to kill him. It’s got a predictable twist at the end, but the revelation of the twist is put off for so long that it’s delightful.
Paul Bettany, whom I adore, gives a sterling performance as a frustrated Scotland Yard inspector. There’s a little bit of comedy to his frustration. In fact, I think The Tourist is easily comparable to Charade (1963, directed by Stanley Donen, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn) because of that little plot twist at the end, in addition to its mix of elegance, suspense and comedy. In some scenes Angelina Jolie is even wearing definitely Hepburn-esque accoutrements like: the elegant black gown with diamond choker; the over-sized, face-concealing dark sunglasses; and, heavy use of mascara to conjure Hepburn’s characteristically large, elfin eyes.
The locations and costumes are fantastic, and the soundtrack gets your heart pumping. Europe never looked so clean, efficient, cosmopolitan and polished to me. It feels like how I imagine a hyper-real James Bond story - a world of wealth, glamour, travel, beautiful women, casinos, high performance cars and trains, expensive jewelry, room service, and perfectly engineered German and Czech firearms. Much of the story is shot in Venice, Italy which in reality is a city with problems, in a long, slow decline. But it still comes off looking wonderfully glamorous. The final shot of the film is a cute little homage to Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean work, a witty juxtaposition of Johnny Depp’s most famous character against Venice’s history of piracy.
Watch for British character actor Rufus Sewell, whom I’ve seen in a couple movies now. He has a minor role as “the Englishman.” But his part is integral to the plot twist.