Movie Review - The Tourist

Train Scene from The Tourist

The Tourist (Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Paul Bettany. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck


Angelina Jolie plays Elise, the girlfriend of a notorious thief named Alexander Pearce. Pearce stole billions of dollars from a ruthless casino owner named Shaw and disappeared, leaving Elise for two years. While in Paris, and being followed by police, she receives a note from Alex telling her to take a train and pretend that someone on it is him. This is supposed to serve simply as a distraction by drawing the police’s attention to an innocent bystander, but the plan gets out of hand when the tourist named Frank (Depp) is mistaken by Shaw as the real Pearce and hunted. Along the way, Elise tries her hardest to remove Frank from the fray.

The movie was panned by most critics for the lack of chemistry between Jolie and Depp but I really think they were expecting too much. They have just enough chemistry to make us believe these two people just met and are tentatively drawn to each other for various reasons. No, the screen doesn’t literally explode, but I really don’t think that is the point of the movie.

Read more »