Two of the mega-stars of our time combine their talents with director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck to bring us a remake of the 2005 French film Anthony Zimmer. The Tourist apparently follows its’ parent feature accordingly but lacks something for me. I can’t exactly place my finger on it, but I went into it thinking that it was something that it was obviously not. Nonetheless, I exited the theater a little disappointed in my evening purchase.
The story begins in France and eventually takes us to Italy where it turns somewhat interesting. Elise (Angelina Jolie) is a quite mysterious woman who literally turns the heads of every male, and even some female, patrons as she walks down the street. We discover rather early on that she is being persistently tagged by a group of authorities from the International Police. This mini-squad of investigators and followers are led by Inspector John Acheson (Paul Bettany) who seems rather obsessed with apprehending her very elusive and absent boyfriend, Alexander Pearce. Through a, in my opinion, not very clever way of slipping her a note, Pearce instructs Elise to board a train and meet him in Italy.
Before disembarking the train at her destination, she is to find someone who she feels resembles him. This tactic is to try to convince her pursuers that they have finally found him and throw them off of her trail. After which, they can finally disappear together. Of course after another round of numerous admirers steady gawking at her as she walks through the train, she chooses Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp). Tupelo is an American tourist vacationing in Italy and is immediately smitten with Elise. She begins conversing with him and after arriving in Italy invites him into her world of luxury filled with high-priced hotels, room service and her non-stop sensuality. Things really begin to get sticky when a mob boss who Pearce stole money from enters the hunt for the international fugitive. Blinded by her beauty, sexuality and glamour, Tupelo has no idea what he is getting himself into until it’s too late.
For some strange reason, every time Depp was shown on camera and spoke, I couldn’t help but picture that of Capt. Jack Sparrow. He was supposed to be an American but his pirate accent still kind of floated around the screen. Jolie was her usual graceful self who simply glowed with sexiness (I tried to think of a better word, but she is what she is and that is what she is). I didn’t think they meshed that well with each other in this film. Some scenes seemed kind of awkward and out of place like they should have been placed in the deleted scene section of the DVD.
Apparently this film is being billed as a drama/comedy/thriller. I, personally, saw nothing that screamed thriller and the scenes that had any sort of humor to me were few and far in between and not all of that funny to begin with. You might even be able to throw the romance tag in there somewhere. Some romance-driven audiences might appreciate that aspect of it, especially with it taking place in two of the most romantic cities in the world.
Bettany’s performance of a cop who desperately needs to take a chill pill when it comes to his job is not his best but still worth noting. I’m actually more interested in seeing him in the upcoming film Priest. Even Timothy Dalton lends some face time as Bettany’s boss. I was expecting a lot more action than was actually present in this film. The drama out-weighed it by let’s say…a lot. The screenplay co-written by von Donnersmarck was adapted straight from the French film which starred Sophie Marceau and Yvan Attal.
As I stated earlier, I was a little disappointed by this one not really knowing what to make of it as I walked back to my car. If romance, a little comedy and an attempt at suspense mixed with confusion is what you like, this might be a fun view for you. I give The Tourist “3 attempts at trying to figure out if Angelina Jolie is wearing underwear or not out of 5”.
-“You're ravenous.”
-“Do you mean 'ravishing'?”
-“I do.”
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment