(Note: when traveling in Italy, watch out for smokin’ hot Italians - and Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, who are not Italians, but are smokin’ hot, nonetheless…)
CAST: Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Steven Berkoff, Timothy Dalton, Rufus Sewell, Raoul Bova.
DIRECTOR: Florian Henckel Von Donnesrmarck
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and strong arguments for taking a Venetian vacation - minus femme fatale - right now.
If there was an award for “Best Performance By A Statue,” Angelina Jolie would win it hands down for her, um, performance in THE TOURIST. Jolie plays Elise Clifton-Ward, a British chick who lives in Paris, and just happens to the girlfriend of an elusive criminal named Alexander Pierce. As such, she is under much scrutiny and surveillance by the Interpol, MI-6, and the French police.
You wouldn’t know that by looking at her, though. With her perfectly coiffed hair and sleek wardrobe, Elise looks like a model just waiting to be called to the set. Not a woman who is being watched by half of Europe’s law enforcement community. At some point, you start wondering if Elise hasn’t constructed a remarkably realistic cardboard cutout of herself to fool them.
And Elise should look just a tad concerned. Turns out Pierce is more than just your basic fugitive. To wit, he has stolen 720 million pounds and used some of it for some extensive plastic surgery. Now no one knows what he looks like. Maybe not even Elise. And MI-6 wants that money back. Badly. So they figure that if they tail Elise long enough, one of two things will happen: (1) she will lead them to Pierce; or (2) Pierce will come to her - and they’ll nail him.
Unfortunately, our intrepid cops failed to consider a third possibility: that Pierce would change his face and identity - and instruct Elise to pick a patsy that everyone will think is Pierce. Remember: no one know what he looks like now, and all she has to do is pick someone who is approximately his height and weight.
After a rather perfunctory game of cat and mouse with the cops through the Paris Metro, Elise boards the EuroStar bound for Venice and scopes out the candidates for “Primo Patsy.” Doesn’t take her long to zero in on a nebbish-looking dude with glasses and a dorky hair cut named Frank Tupelo (damn, he even sounds like a dork). Frank also just happens to look like Johnny Depp. Which means all the glasses in the world, and the dorkiest haircut in the Milky Way, and the dorkiest name in the Universe, ain’t gonna do a damn thing to hurt his game.
Nevertheless, we’re expected to believe Frank, despite looking lke Johnny Depp, is supposed to be some unlucky-in-love dipshit who’s putty in the hands of the coolly manipulative Elise. Okay. Sure. And James Franco has a hard time lining up a date for Saturday night. Right. In what far-flung, fucked-up galaxy is this supposed to be plausible?
Whatever. At any rate, it goes without saying that once Elise starts batting her eyelashes at Frank like he looks like Johnny Depp, all the cops tailing her immediately assume that he is Alexander Pierce - and give him a hard time when they arrive in Venice. And, as if that’s not bad enough, all of Alexander’s rival criminals whom he stole that 720 million pounds from, also assume Frank is the new Alexander - and start chasing him around, too.
Christ, what is the collective IQ of these dumbasses? Fourteen? Somewhere out there, the real Alexander Pierce must be guffawing in disbelief at just how well his plan worked. Must note this for the future, in case I need to get out of the city undetected. Of course, with my luck, my underling/plaything will just fuck the whole thing up and choose an undercover cop as a patsy. Bad help is so easy to find.
So… will the cops and crooks continue to mistake Frank for Alexander Pierce? Will Elise just stand by and let this innocent guy get fucked-up left and right? Will the real Alexander Pierce show up in time to save Frank from getting bitch-slapped into the next dimension? Does Elise have a hidden agenda behind her hidden agenda? If so, what is it? And the most vital, pressing, urgent question of all: is Elise a visitor from the Planet of Mannequins?
Because, damn… I could’ve sworn I just saw her in the Nordstrom’s window just this afternoon. And she had the same look on her face then, too. Actually, she seems to be limited to one look.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: In 2005, the French thriller ANTHONY ZIMMER was released in Europe - and then the rest of the world. It starred French superstars Yvan Attal and Sophie Marceau and, while no Earth-shattering game-changer, was still a diverting and suspenseful exercise in neo-Hitchcockian flair.
Attal portrayed the typical Hitchcock “everyman” who is pulled into a serpentine web of murder and deceit by a stunning and unpredictable femme fatale played by Marceau. Attal was just the right blend of handsome and plain, while Marceau delivered a character that was a nicer version of her classic villainess Elektra King from THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH.
It’s a testament to the effectiveness of ANTHONY ZIMMER that as soon as it ended, I was ready to watch it again to catch all the things I’d missed that led up to the surprisingly moving twist ending. Part of the reason this film succeeds is because it refuses to play anything over-the-top and keeps things low-key. This leads to a steady simmer of dread and suspense. So much so that when the climax hits, the measured build-up leaves you with your guard down.
However, In remaking ANTHONY ZIMMER into THE TOURIST director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck (is that a name, or what?) sadly goes the “American Studio” route and blows everything up to gargantuan proportions. First, we get mega-stars Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. Now, this in itself is not bad. After all, Sophie Marceau is like the Julia Roberts of France, so star power is not necessarily a bad thing.
Unfortunately, whether by choice or instruction, Jolie turns Elise into a posing mannequin. I thought I was the only who felt this way, but apparently so do a lot of other critics. Also, a friend whom we will call “Liam Neeson” because of his resemblance to that actor, once again hit the nail on the head with his assessment of Jolie’s performance. “Liam” and I saw the film together, and he stated that while she was perfect on the surface, Jolie never showed us any true sense of Elise’s humanity. She never looks less than perfect. Even in a scene late in the film where she is threatened by some thugs, her hair looks artfully messed up, as if for a photo shoot. Basically, Jolie is modeling here. Very effectively and very attractively - but she’s not truly acting.
Contrast this with Marceau’s performance from ANTHONY ZIMMER. In her hands, Chiara Manzoni (the Elise role) was a true wild card: sleek, seductive, soulful, and scary - all at the same time. She was a true Hitchcock blonde in a brunette’s body. The whole reason ANTHONY ZIMMER worked was because, like BASIC INSTINCT, we could never be sure until late in the game whose side the heroine was on. To be fair, the Elise character in THE TOURIST has also been sanded down to the point where she no longer has any rough edges - so Jolie may have been fighting a losing battle. As a result, Elise is a lot less interesting. Unlike Chiara from the first film, who came across as a complex and conflicted human being with some hard choices to make.
With Johnny Depp, we have a different problem. While Jolie may not be believable as a complex and human heroine, we at least buy her as a caricature of a femme fatale. With Frank Tupelo, Johnny Depp actually seems to be sleepwalking - and is thoroughly unbelievable as a patsy. Given all the dangerous things happening around him, Frank just seems barely concerned. Of course, you could argue that the twist at the end explains some of this, but I would counter that it would not. After all, Frank has very little knowledge of how things will actually turn out, and should be a tiny bit afraid. While he does have a couple of amusing lines, Depp ultimately doesn’t let us forget that, well, he’s Johnny Depp.
Another thing that weakens THE TOURIST considerably is that, for all the hoopla about their casting, Depp and Jolie have tepid (if that) chemistry. Contrast this with the simmering connection between Sophie Marceau and Yvan Attal in ANTHONY ZIMMER. The more they tried to fight against it, the more it boiled to the surface. That’s what the leads of THE TOURIST should have had - something palpable that the entire room can feel. Marceau and Attal’s potent chemistry makes Depp and Jolie’s look like that of car poolers.
In the end, though, THE TOURIST is saved by two things: (1) a decent story that explores the timeless hook of the “Innocent Man Seduced By A Dangerous Woman”; and (2) a raft of supporting stars who provide more spark than the two leads combined. Timothy Dalton, Paul Bettany, Rufus Sewell, Steven Berkoff, and - especially - the beautiful Raoul Bova, all hit the mark with their small but memorable roles. I actually remember them more than I remember Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp’s performances.
To see the correct way to handle this type of movie, see the poster and trailer for ANTHONY ZIMMER below. Shot for shot, the trailer is similar to that of THE TOURIST. But trust me - it’s a far better film.
