I'm going to forgo the apologies and just say that since I discovered FF, made an excellent email friend and got my damn job back sadly writing the reviews has gone to the back burner. That said, I would like to try to get back into the game, so here we go.So, The Tourist. It's a caper-spy-mistaken-identity film starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. Paul Bettany, Rufus Sewell and Timothy Dalton (!!!) have supporting roles. Jolie plays Elise, a woman who is more than meets the eye and appears to be under the watchful eye of Scotland Yard and Interpol because her estranged boyfriend stole upwards of two billion dollars from a British gangster and owes Her Majesty's government a tidy sum of back taxes. Bettany is the Scotland Yard agent on her case and Depp is merely (or so one thinks) a useful cog in a very mysterious wheel.
What I really enjoyed about this film was it's rather whimsical mix of comedy and suspense. Not to mention that I've truly never seen a Jolie movie where she looked so incredibly ethereal and drop-dead gorgeous in every. single. shot. She plays the estranged lover very well, and there is both an excitement and a sadness behind her eyes through most of the film. Depp plays the somewhat bumbling community college math teacher, Frank well too. He's amusing and rather useless and awkward until the closing third of the film, at which point a very interesting twist takes place.
Bettany works the over-aggressive-bordering-on-obsessed outstandingly, though you aren't really sure why he's so after this dude until the end; and I adored Timothy Dalton as the Police Chief who is sick of Bettany's waste of public funds. Needless to say, he does come to the rescue at the very end to give the order that Bettany is simply too close to to give himself.
The pace of this film is excellent, and even the somewhat dull moments don't feel dull at all simply because of the excellent dialogue and general loveliness you are able to look at on screen. The Venice locale is an amazing backdrop for the film and the action sequences, are well timed and impeccably shot. In particular, the boat chase down the canals. I can't imagine the logistics of that, but it was most impressive.
I think I figured the twist out ten minutes before it happened, but up until then I had an entirely different idea in my head of how it would turn out, so the ending is VERY satisfying. I wouldn't really call this a thriller, but it's definitely suspenseful and mysterious. Plus, the cast turns what could have been a sub-par film into something entirely worth the cost of admission and then some. I'd recommend it to anyone a fan of the actors or the genre, it's definitely one that will stick with you for a bit and is a very fun ride.
PS you might feel a bit for Bettany there at the end, because it's not exactly satisfying for everyone involved...However, Timothy Dalton FTW. He says something I'm sure many of us have said before in our lives, and it's just genuinely satisfying to see.
