It’s a Jolie holiday

Enjoyable, but forgettable ... Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in The Tourist

 

The Tourist (12A)
103mins

JOHNNY DEPP and Angelina Jolie, there's a couple of names to have on your film's poster.
The biggest male and female movie stars in the world, on screen together for the very first time.
Add the name of brilliant director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives Of Others) and, apart from a much wider poster, you have a film oozing A-list glamour.
And this is a hugely enjoyable, if instantly forgettable, crime caper.
It begins with the beautiful Elise (Jolie) under surveillance by French police, led by Scotland Yard officer Acheson (Paul Bettany).
Acheson is obsessed with catching her ex boyfriend, the multi-millionaire Alexander Pearce. Trouble is, Pearce has had plastic surgery to alter his appearance and now no one, including Elise, knows what he looks like.
Step in tourist Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp), a seemingly innocent American maths teacher.
After a chance meeting with Elise on a train, he gets dragged into her worlds of glamour (swish hotels) and danger (rooftop chases, speedboat-based gunfights and Russian mobsters led by evil billionaire Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff)).
At one point Shaw actually kills someone with a tape measure. Think of this as being like a gender reversal of Knight And Day, except classier, funnier and generally better, mainly thanks to Depp.
While Jolie is both talented and head-turningly beautiful (literally - there are scenes in which everyone turns to watch her walk by), playing a femme fatale is hardly a stretch for her.

Strangers on a train ... Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in The Tourist

Peter Mountain

Depp on the other hand has not played a regular guy in a non-period movie since 2004's Secret Window.
After all the out-there performances - from the Mad Hatter to Jack Sparrow and Willy Wonka - it's nice to be reminded that, even without the crazy hair and costumes, he can still be incredibly funny. He invests Frank with a loveable awkwardness while preventing him from becoming a predictable fish-out-of-water buffoon.

The plot doesn't stand up to scrutiny and it won't stay with you much after you have stepped out of the cinema and gone: "Bloody hell it's freezing."
But, it you sit back and enjoy the eye candy of the stars and locations, at least one cold winter night will actually fly by.
VERDICT: FOUR OUT OF FIVE
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