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The Tourist
Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp
Directed by Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2011
103 minutes
The Tourist is a lightweight romantic thriller DVD starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. It consciously echoes the mood and luxuriousness of similar movies from the fifties and early sixties with, say, Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck (who were quite good together in Charade). In the somewhat interesting director s commentary track Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck says he wanted a movie you could just sit back and enjoy. This is what this DVD is. It is also a remake of a French thriller titled Anthony Zimmer.
Elyse (Jolie) is the main squeeze of a very successful thief named Andrew Pearce. Pearce has vanished. Interpol is following Elyse in the hope of finding Pearce. Elyse gets instructions from Pearce, and boards the train to Venice and befriends a man who sort of looks like him. This man is a vacationing American math teacher named Frank. Interpol and the Russian mobster from whom Pearce stole think Frank is Pearce.
As a sit back and enjoy DVD The Tourist works though it is not that good. It does pick up once someone tries to kill Frank about halfway through it.
Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp do not have any kind of on-screen chemistry and on-screen chemistry would have made the Elyse and Frank relationship work.
Not enough is done with Frank being a fish out of water in Elyse s luxurious world. Almost immediately forgotten but central to the movie is the set-up Elyse gives Frank when she first meets him: imagine you are a character in a thriller.
Frank uses an electronic cigarette and that is obviously just an affectation Depp chose to understand or get into his character.
Do not bother looking for the mystery novel Frank is reading, Berlin Vendetta by Charles Torbett. Neither exist.
Special features on the The Tourist DVD are a director s commentary track, and outtake reel, and a couple of featurettes.