Film reviews
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It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.
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The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.
The Dictator
A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.
The Woman In Black
Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.
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The Tourist (Film)
Rating: M
Running Time: 103
Country: USA, France
Director: Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck
Cast: Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Rufus Sewell
Distributor: Sony
Release Date: December 26, 2010
Film Worth: $5.00
FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worthThe beautiful scenery and glamorous lead actors can’t make up for the increasingly absurd plot or flat performances.
Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck deserves credit for versatility. He made a masterpiece - The Lives Of Others - and now he's gone right to the other end of the qualitative spectrum.
The Tourist looks fine in a chocolate-boxy way - hard not to when it's set mostly in Venice - and boasts precisely two good performances: Angelina Jolie's as an enigmatic femme fatale, and Steven Berkoff's (though yet again this great actor is wasted as a sort of Bond villain). Everyone else is workmanlike at best, except Johnny Depp who's flat and wooden.
The basic idea is that the British government is chasing Alexander Pearce, a crook who stole an astronomical amount of money from a gangster called Shaw (Berkoff). Shaw wants his money back, the cops want the taxes on that money, and the trail leads - via Pearce's girlfriend Elise Clifton Ward (Jolie) - to Venice. Elise knows she's being followed, and attempts to confound her pursuers by taking up with a stranger on a train and pretending he's Pearce. So far, so farcical. The stranger in question is one Frank Tupelo (Depp), a rather nerdy maths teacher from Wisconsin who's on holiday in Europe to try and mend a broken heart. You can see where this is heading, can't you?
Admittedly, the actual ending of The Tourist is not entirely predictable, but then nor is it believable. And the most mysterious thing about the film is why Johnny Depp - who has carved out an extremely impressive cinematic career from impeccably chosen roles - agreed to be in it. Perhaps his feeble effort is a reflection of embarrassment. It's as if he's gone back to 21 Jump Street. Woeful.
