Tourist Trap

The Tourist is another one of those how-can-it-go-wrong movies: Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie on location in Venice. At best, you get a Bourne-style thriller, at worst, Bored to Death in Venice. I would have said I'd watch these actors read the phonebook - would this movie give me the chance to prove it?

Jolie, the girlfriend of a fugitive criminal is under heavy police surveillance. In a chic Paris cafe, she gets a note from her boyfriend with the following plan: get on the train to Venice, pick a dupe who looks like him and befriend him. Since boyfriend has had plastic surgery, everyone will think it's him.

She picks Johnny Depp, a mild-mannered math teacher from Madison. Maybe she likes his looks, maybe it's the spy thriller paperback he's reading. They get to Venice and tangle with the usual assortment of Interpol, Anglo-Russian mafia, corrupt local officials, arrogant desk clerks, etc.

Throughout, Jolie is dressed in gorgeous Chanel-style shmattes - looking, as Ms. Spenser said, like a mix between Audrey Hepburn and Sofia Loren. She looks beautiful, and has quite the acrobatic hipswing, but really, she has one expression (a kind of Mona Lisa smirk) for the whole film. She also is looking a bit worn - I thought this was intentional, that she was supposed to have an "older woman" vibe for Depp. But he's actually more than a decade older than her.

Depp isn't great in this, until the end, which is horrible. I probably don't need to say SPOILER, but the twist ending completely wipes out everything that came before it. You know how some twist endings make you go, "Oh yeah, now I see! That's what that was about. It all comes together." This is the opposite. After the twist nothing makes sense: The characterization is all a farce, the plot depends entirely on coincidences, and you will hate this movie and yourself for watching it.

But other than that, I actually kind of enjoyed this movie. Venice is beautiful, and so is Ms. Jolie. That's usually enough for me. Maybe I should have watched it with the sound off.