In 2010, GK Films, Spyglass Entertainment, Bimbaum/Barber, and Studio Canal came up with a brilliant plan.
They would put two of the most beautiful people in the world on screen together, and let them traipse across Europe.
Yeah, except this stinker cost an estimated US $100 million, made less than US $17 million its opening weekend, and in four months still didn't make US $70 million globally.
Scotland Yard and Interpol identify the thief's girlfriend, Elise Clifton-Ward (Angelina Jolie). The thief sends her a message, telling her to board a train in Paris, pick out the tourist, and make the cops believe that the tourist is the disguised thief. She picks math teacher Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp), and the game is on.
Verdict
Shamefully boring.
The plot is ridiculous.
Tax evasion was the best they could come up with? Come on! Christopher McQuarrie wrote The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie, and Way of the Gun. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (I could not make that up, I swear) wrote The Lives of Others, the only other feature-length production that he'd directed before this. That should have been a sign.
There's no onscreen chemistry between Jolie and Depp. The scenes in Paris and Venice try desperately to look glamorous but pale in comparison with, say Ocean's Twelve or the granddaddy of them all, Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief.
Johnny Depp is terrific, but he's no Cary Grant.
For that matter, Paul Bettany was better nine years earlier as Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knight's Tale, and he spent quite a bit of that movie naked. Might be a lesson in that for Mr. Bettany.
This movie at times brings to mind The Mexican, Silver Streak, and Knight and Day. Unfortunately, it lacks the energy of any of those.
Lessons
First, you can't just throw box office stars on screen and assume that you're going to make money. Hollywood tries this again and again, and always seems surprised when it fails. I haven't done the math, but I'd bet it succeeds less than 50% of the time.
Stop it, please.
Second, if you get a Christopher McQuarrie, get out of his way and let him work. I don't care if that talent is a writer, director, producer, actor, key grip, or the head of craft services. If you've got high-caliber talent, watch your budget but don't second guess it.
Third, if you're going to imitate something, don't imitate some French movie that no one has ever heard of (Anthony Zimmer, 2005). Nut up and re-make a great movie like To Catch a Thief. I mean, let's face it: Johnny Depp would have been way better as a retired jewel thief and former French Resistance fighter than he is as a vacationing Wisconsin math teacher.
Fourth, don't give an art house wunderkind US $100 million dollars. No matter how terrific the wunderkind is, that person has no idea how to use a budget that large. Give him something smaller to work on, and let him grow into a major box office draw.
If you, dear reader, skipped The Tourist, then you made a good decision. Keep skipping it.
If you saw it, then I share your pain.
