The Tourist (2010)

Tagline: The perfect trip. The perfect trap.

Curiosity: My girlfriend loves Angelina Jolie’s movies. Which means I’ve seen most of Angelina Jolie’s movies.

Plot: Elise (Jolie) is a sexy British lady, and police officer Acheson (Paul Bettany, Legion) is all like, “Dang she’s pretty. Track that shit.” Also her ex-boyfriend Alexander (MYSTERY CASTING!!!) has stolen like a gajillion dollars from everyone ever, so people are pretty interested in that too. Alexander is trying to hook up with Elise, on account of her solid hotness rating, but he needs to throw detectives off their trail. So, he writes her a letter asking her to seduce a guy who looks similar enough to him so folks will focus on that dude instead. Elise chooses the clearly boring math teacher Frank (Johnny Depp), who is clearly from Wisconsin. Listen to that accent! Look at that haircut! That’s a Midwestern math teacher haircut if I’ve ever seen one.

Thoughts: Let’s get the good things out of the way so my girlfriend won’t be mad at me (She really liked the movie). The Tourist is set in Paris, France and Venice, Italy (Those are in Europe!), so the locations are pretty much gorgeous across the board. Jolie looks great and gives a solid performance. The film also has a nice, slow pacing, lending it a retro, classic movie feel. And my lady and I agree that Paul Bettany is awesome as the cop who sucks at his job. Most movies would turn the bungling cop into an annoying slapstick type, but Bettany, being Bettany, fucks up his job with conviction. I didn’t even know his character was named Acheson until I looked it up just now. We just screamed “Godammit Bettany!” every time he messed up.

SPOILER: The entire film is dependent on Bettany fucking up. I’d have to rewatch the film to check the numbers, but I guess he makes at least five important decisions that A) are the opposite of helpful and B) serve to drive the plot along. Bettany fucking up = deus ex machina.

Anyway, here’s where the film hilariously fails (Please reread my comments on Bettany): Jolie and Depp have no chemistry, and, to be honest, Depp doesn’t seem to be trying all that hard here. No accent. No attempt to look like the character’s background would suggest. He’s just Depping it up.

The film’s slow pace often comes off as ridiculous. The plot is super cheesy – I guessed the twist ending about halfway through, thought, “There’s no way they would do something that stupid,” then laughed a bit when I found out I was right. The movie is paced like it should be something grander, but it’s just not smart enough to warrant that. This is B-movie popcorn fare, and needed to be treated as such. That’s what made Salt and Wanted so great. The Tourist instead is too slow and plodding – made especially clear during a hysterically slow boat chase scene – to hit that mark. It’s still a funny bad-good movie, but I can’t say I’d watch it again.

Although I do like watching Paul Bettany fail...

Reflection: Paul Bettany is married to Jennifer Connelly. What a dick.