Wish you weren't here

It's not every day that a bearded math teacher from Wisconsin is propositioned by a beautiful stranger on a train. So when exactly that happens to Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp), it's no wonder that he bookmarks his spy novel, irons out his pick-up lines and asks said stranger to dinner. Unfortunately for Frank, although the train is bound for romantic Venice, the only smooch he's likely to be getting is the kiss of death.

The mystery woman in question is Elise Clifton-Ward (Angelina Jolie), and she's using poor Frank as a foil. Both Scotland Yard and psychotic gangster Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff) want to get their hands on Elise's lover, Alexander Pearce. This elusive bad boy has embezzled a tidy sum from Shaw's outfit, evaded his tax duties and is now in some seriously hot water. A close eye is being kept on Elise, because Shaw knows sooner or later she'll go to her man.

But Pearce has a plan. He's instructed Elise to shake off the pursuers by getting cozy with any bloke roughly his build (FYI, he's had cosmetic surgery, so no one knows what he looks like anymore). Once the unsuspecting pedagogue has been framed for Pearce's wrongdoings, Elise and her despicable beau intend to scarper.

Frank is lured into a frenzied world of knife-edge elegance: cocktails by moonlight one moment, hot-footed by Russian henchman the next. But he has truly fallen for the femme fatale, and attempts on his life do little to deter him from trying to get closer to her luscious lips.

Depp as Frank is total a mystery, and not in a good way. For one thing, he makes for an incredulous math teacher, but much worse, he's wanting in any depth of character at all. At the end of the day, you couldn't care less if he is assassinated or not.

Elise hovers on a cushion of air created by her own self importance, perpetually floating through hotel lobbies, swaggering off boats and slinking down train aisles. That she turns the head of every single man she passes means there's more than enough material for a humorous YouTube montage. She is implacable, resplendent and a complete bore.

Chuck the two stars together, and you're left with an uncomfortably cold pairing that simply doesn't fly. Ricky Gervais' recent Golden Globes quip about everything being 3-D at the moment apart from the characters in The Tourist couldn't be truer.

Okay, so The Tourist was never made to alter the course of modern cinema. But here is a poor pastiche that doesn't live up to its influences: films like Charade and North By Northwest. Recapturing the pizzazz of old classics is never easy, but even so, it's as if The Tourist has ignored the very qualities of the movies it so obviously wants to be. [For more on this, see The Cinefile at Blogs.praguepost.com/film]

The lack of va-va-voom between Depp and Jolie has already been questioned, but the problems run deeper than that. For one thing, where's all the action?

In North By Northwest, Thornhill is endeared to us by the sheer hell he's put through: poisoned with whisky, tormented by a plane, left dangling off a president's face. In The Tourist, we wait for 40 minutes before Tupelo is lethargically chased across a rooftop in his pajamas, then "comically" barges a poliziotto into a canal. Hitchcock it is not.

There are glints of sharp dialogue, such as when Tupelo is taken in by Italian police and told that attempted murder is not so bad: "Not when you downgrade it from murder. But when you upgrade it from room service, it's quite serious." But there isn't enough of this sparkle, and in a movie that sells itself on light and bubbly, there's no excuse for flat repartee.

So, no chemistry, not enough brawn, and light on the wit - what exactly does that leave us with? If there's one thing The Tourist does well, it's look sexy. The film is set in Venice, after all, and features two of the prettiest mugs that this generation has had the pleasure of viewing. But the most sprawling aerial sweeps of the city and the slowest slow-motion shots of Jolie's physique can do little to mask this production's underlying ugliness. So vain is the whole affair, it's like watching a Visit Venice campaign, or an extended advertisement for perfume. You half-expect Jolie to produce a bottle of scent from between her bosoms, and whisper the name of it down the camera lens.

For all its A-lister hype, The Tourist would do well to take a leaf out of Pearce's book and keep a low profile. As for the twist at the end - if you didn't see it coming, it's because you already left the cinema.

Will Noble can be reached at
wnoble@praguepost.com