The Tourist

The Tourist is a fun action movie that has great on the edge of your seat moments without draining all of your energy like a lot of edge of your seat movies tend to do. While this movie had its fair shares of issues from replacing roles to replacing a director, I think in the end it got it right. Having seen this movie now I can understand why it received the golden globe nomination for best picture, and while it was no groundbreaking movie it did precisely what one wants a movie to do and that is to entertain. While there were a lot of negative reviews from critics and while they were not completely wrong the movie is enjoyable and a great diversion.

Depp's Frank is delightful, touching and slightly mysterious. He has endless room to play around, and makes Frank memorable, and lovely, as only Depp can. I loved seeing Deep in a role that was normal. I have become so used to seeing him being wild kooky characters that for me it was refreshing to see Depp go in a different role from those of late. Jolie's role is more limiting, but she still makes it fresh and - yes - deeply amusing, parodying both herself and the genre in general. Watching her saunter around on her high heels, one can't help but recall what James Bond used to be like. This isn't Wanted or Salt: she has far more to do here than look cryptic and shoot people, and she does it very well. Add to that the utterly magnificent Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton and a few stereotypically dim Russian gangsters, who speak actual Russian for once and there funniest lines are not even subtitled, you can not go wrong.

Naturally, a movie that takes place in Venice the views are going to be spectacular. One can not help but actually view the city nearly as its own separate character because of the beauty that we are treated to.  The visuals are simply stunning, whether that describes the beautiful European vistas, lavish homes and hotels or the lead actors, there is definitely eye candy everywhere. The action scenes are exciting and even the dialogue has some charm. However it seems that for every peak there is a valley. The Tourist like its pre-production story seems to have a bit of an identity crisis. At times the film feels intense and brooding, other times it feels like a carefree romp through the waterways of Venice.

For me the biggest part of this movie that hurt it was simply that the plot was not as strong as it needed to be and the characters were left very much on the surface with a lack of depth. For what sounds like a fantastic plot on paper, the execution of it all leaves a little something to be desired. Perhaps the problem is with expectations. The premise and the trailer and two actors who typically take on fairly meaty roles suggests that The Tourist would at least have hints of substance, instead the audience is left with a beautiful and fun movie that is essentially summer action fluff – think The Italian Job meets Knight and Day.

While this movie had its weaknesses, the strengths outweighed the drawbacks. The Tourist does not try to be an intellectual film, but instead it is a fun romp through a beautiful city. The Tourist has a nice twist that helped give it that extra boost in my book. I am giving The Tourist three buckets of popcorn out of five. This is a movie that is worth the price of a rental and it will be one that you will need to make your own decision regarding if it is worth buying or not for your own DVD collection.

-The Movie Man