The Tourist

Welcome to a very special episode of Lights....Camera....Popcorn!

Today's review is The Tourist. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Written by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Christopher McQuarrie & Julian Fellowes.

100th review countdown....#100

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and brief strong language.

Runtime: 103 min

Cast

Johnny Depp - Frank Tupelo

Angelina Jolie - Elise Clifton-Ward

Paul Bettany - Inspector John Acheson

Timothy Dalton - Chief Inspector Jones

Steven Berkoff - Reginald Shaw

Rufus Sewell - The Englishman


Movies and magic tricks have a lot in common. Their purpose is to amaze, defy belief and most importantly entertain. Every once in a while, a movie will employ magic's greatest attribute to achieve it's desired effect. That attribute is misdirection. Without misdirection, a magic trick is doomed to fail. This film executes it's form of misdirection masterfully. There's just 1 tiny problem.

The Tourist tries to convince you it doesn't SUCK!


IT FAILED!


Elise Ward boards a train bound for Venice where she enlists Frank Tupelo as a useful idiot to help her elude the law and the mob to rendezvous with a very mysterious accomplice who has made off with an obscene amount of money.

This movie disappoints on so many levels. Let's break down the 3 key components that led to it's majestic failure. We begin with the life of every film.

1) Story - The story is so empty and flat that I didn't wish for more plot development (which it desperately needed). I wished for the end credits. The film begins by trying to introduce a feeling of stealth and the life of the covert. It took about 1 1/2 minutes for them to screw that up. Next up we have the blatant disregard for character development. The principles in this film just walk around doing their thing and we just accept who they are by osmosis. I know I've gone on rants in the past about exposition. If this movie used exposition you know what you would have had?

CHARACTER INTRODUCTION!

Since that wasn't the case here, the powers that be chose to just drib and drab information about the main characters. Highlighted during scenes with a line here and a line there. You're then expected to and move on.

The biggest flaw of the story dealt with the misdirection I mentioned earlier. To compensate for the awfully executed plot, several M. Night Scam-a-lan moments were employed. This was clearly part of the narrative from the beginning except.

I SAW THEM COMING FROM A MILE AWAY!

Worse yet, they didn't help the story. A great plot twist enhances a film. It takes it to another level. Especially when you are looking one way for 2 hours them POW! the rug gets pulled from your feet and your floored with this moment of HOLY S#!T!

Here are 2 great examples of what I'm talking about.

Verbal Kint is really Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects. For the entire length of that movie you believe that Verbal is the man he says he is. It's not until those last few frames when you see his crippling limp magically transform into a brisk walk down the street do you know you were hoodwinked.

Dr. Malcolm Crowe is actually a ghost in The Sixth Sense. As much as I hate to give him credit. Scam-a-lan pulled this one off really well. Anyone who tells you they knew that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time the 1st time they saw that movie is a flat out liar.

These are plot twists that not only change your viewpoint of the character. They change your viewpoint of the film as a whole. When done properly, it's a device that can make a movie magical and memorable. Done poorly and it feels like a cop out and lazy. In it's attempt to be it's own super mystery, The Tourist succeeded in creating one really big mystery.

Why in the world did it take 3 people to write this sophomoric attempt at a movie mystery/thriller?

The other 2 components of this film's failure actually go hand in hand so I will combine them.

The cast though stout in name recognition was just deplorable. The performances by and by were trite and very pretentious. It wreaked of paycheck acting. Angelina Jolie fires through her poorly written dialogue with as much emotion and enthusiasm as I have watching NY Giants football. Johnny Depp wasn't as bad. He wasn't good either. His character required some stupidity/naivety which is OK. What eventually happened is he became an annoyance. You're supposed to care about these characters and instead you are wishing them harm. Not a good outcome. Finally with the bad guy Shaw. The "script" if you can call it that addresses this guy as a pretty ruthless man with no scruples whatsoever. So how does this movie establish his black hole of a conscience? He chokes one of his henchman to death with a tailor's measuring tape.

Really? A tailor's measuring tape? Wow! that was brutal man.

The best part about that was before he does this, he pontificates on how he's hired men to do the killing for him so he no longer has to. Just another "get out of jail free card" from the script instead of really showing us a real bad ass villain.

This is a byproduct of the director. Which is by leaps and bounds the biggest disappointment of them all. This is von Donnersmark's first crack at Hollywood but it's not his first feature film. He was the director of the 2006 film The Lives of Others which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. If you haven't seen it, I strongly urge you do. That was a fine piece of storytelling. Which is why I'm baffled beyond belief that from that film he came up with this for an encore. There were so many basic boo boo's with his direction here that it's pointless for me to go over them.

There's nothing more to say here.

On the 5 star scale. The Tourist gets the goose egg 0 stars. With a "Save The Loot" recommendation.

I avoided this film for a reason. It's a shame that I was proven right. I just wished that my 100th film wasn't such a stinker. That's the gamble I take with every movie I go see. The good news is that soon it will be out of the theater and you won't have to worry about spending your $$$ on it.

The other bright side is that I now have a front runner for Worst Film of 2011.

That's a wrap for today. Up next is Season of The Witch.

I can't explain why but the more and more I see the trailer, the more I'm intrigued. I'm going to take a shot and see what happens. There's a good chance I'll have a new leader for Worst of 2011 but you never know. Stranger things have happened at the movies.

Until Next Episode...."I'll Save You A Seat!"

"D"