When Johnny Depp smokes a fake cigarette early in The Tourist, you may suspect something's up. By the time he and Angelina Jolie spend their first conversation all but deconstructing the international-mystery-of-intrigue, you're pretty much convinced: This is a joke, right? Not exactly. Stuck somewhere between poker-faced parody and a flimsy genre exercise, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's self-conscious romantic thriller is neither good enough to strike real sparks nor bad enough to provide genuine amusement. Still, though it lands off target, it's at least a somewhat enjoyable miss.
Still clinging to the box-office Top 10 after a few weeks in release, The Tourist plays like the class assignment of a dilettante dabbling in Hitchcock 101. It's hard to think of a genre trope from the Master's playbook that Donnersmarck doesn't use, most resulting in confused chuckles as the audience tries to guess if he's straight or kidding. The aforementioned tell (the fake cigarette) is preceded by a winking soundtrack — think North by Northwest by way of The Pink Panther — that immediately sets quotation marks around the action. From there, the film takes a familiar path: mysterious beauty (Jolie), mistaken identity (Depp), bad guys with scars, an absurd plot and an even more absurd ending.
If this is all meant as affectionate genre ribbing, or the kind of blithe implausibility Hitchcock pulled off so deftly in North by Northwest, it comes off more confused than inspired. There's the obligatory chase scene — but here, a pajama-clad Depp channels Jack Sparrow, skipping from rooftop to rooftop evading would-be killers. There's the passionate kiss complete with swoony symphony soundtrack and lingerie for the leading lady — but here, it's all a dream and Depp wakes up on the couch. Get it? The trouble is, the movie keeps elbowing you in the ribs when it can't even decide if it's telling jokes.
If The Tourist is a farce, it's not farcical enough. While Jolie does just fine as an over-the-top femme fatale, Depp seems to have wandered in from a different movie — one where he's cast against all odds or reason as "Frank Tupelo," vacationing math teacher, who's a bit insecure around the ladies. Uh-huh. Even without his pirate suit or a wacky outfit from Tim Burton's closet, he's still Johnny Depp, he's cool as hell — and he's the wrong person for the part. If Jolie's amusing man-eater act typifies everything that's fun about the movie, Depp's morose, uncertain performance signifies everything that's not.
The fatal flaw here is indecision. Earlier this year, Roman Polanski pulled off a tightrope walk between near-parody and sardonic thrills in The Ghost Writer, but only because he seemed equally comfortable with both. Donnersmarck, on the other hand, can't commit to either. If a retro Hitchcockian romp was his true aim — and I can't believe it was — Donnersmarck's Oscar for The Lives of Others might walk right off his mantle. As a subtle satiric comment on the genre's innate silliness, the movie's better, but still non-committal. Even if you find enough in The Tourist to make it worth the trip, you won't be coming back anytime soon.
