Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence, mild sensuality and a hiccup of profanity
By Derrick Bang
Stars Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck – who won a well-deserved Academy Award for 2006’s merely terrific The Lives of Others
– and a sharp, cosmopolitan script by von Donnersmarck, Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects
) and Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park
, The Young Victoria).Goodness, how could it miss?
It doesn’t.
 |
| Strangers on a train: Elise (Angelina Jolie) surprises Frank (Johnny Depp), a complete stranger, when she sits across from him during a railway journey to Venice. Although Frank is convinced she has made an odd mistake, in fact Elise has chosen her new comparion with care ... and for reasons that are about to become significantly dangerous. |
The Tourist is an engaging throwback to sophisticated 1960s espionage romps that matched stunning women with bemused and often clueless men: deservedly treasured classics such as Charade
(Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant) and Arabesque
(Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck). Full disclosure forces me to acknowledge this as one of my favorite genres, so I approached The Tourist with high expectations and guarded concern: It ain’t easy to re-capture this sort of lightning in a bottle.No worries, mate. The storyline is pure bonkers, to be sure, but the execution is a whole lotta fun.
Jolie makes a pluperfect femme fatale, although cut from a different (much more expensive) cloth than the sleeper agent she played in this past summer’s Salt. Her Elise Clifton-Ward is an ethereal sophisticate: the sort of woman accustomed to playing with her toys, particularly those that stand on two legs. Her expression is a heady brew of charming amusement and mildly smug superiority: a smoldering, come-hither glance that promises much but yields little.
At the same time, she’s open to novelty: Any man might have a chance, her gaze suggests, if he intrigues her sufficiently.
Depp, although playing as “ordinary” as we’ve seen him in years – his Frank Tupelo is a mild-mannered American math professor – is captivating in his mundaneness. His timid astonishment – this woman’s paying attention to me? – is pitch perfect, his worried, are-you-putting-me-on sideways glances to die for. And I lament the fate of theater patrons lacking acute hearing, because they’ll miss all of Depp’s nervous grumbles and worried frum-frahs. He can turn a squeaky “Hmmmm?” into the height of hilarity.
We know we’re in good hands right from the get-go, as James Newton Howard’s engaging score
draws us into a stakeout of Elise by law enforcement agents in several countries: a long-running operation overseen by British investigator Acheson (Paul Bettany, appropriately brittle). 
