The Tourist Review: Venice Is Gorgeous, the Story Isn’t

The Tourist stars Johnny Depp as Frank, an American tourist in Venice who meets Elise (Angelina Jolie) while she is being chased by a criminal gang. She tells him she needs help, he agrees, and the movie spends the next hour and a half pretending that this is a thriller. It is not. It is a romance dressed in bulletproof vests.

Depp plays Frank as a man who cannot say no, which is a fine premise until the plot requires him to be clever. He is not clever. He is a hostage to the script, dragged from one chase scene to the next while the camera admires Venice and the actors pretend they are in danger. Jolie plays Elise as a woman who knows everything about the conspiracy but cannot explain it to anyone. The result is a movie that never explains itself.

Trailer, via Volta Pictures.

The Setup

Frank is in Venice for a holiday. Elise finds him, tells him her troubles, and asks him to be her partner. He says yes. That decision drives the entire film, and it is a bad one. Depp and Jolie have chemistry, but the script wastes it by making their scenes together feel like a detour between action set pieces rather than the point of the story.

The villain, played by Paul Bettany, is supposed to be a dangerous mastermind. He is not. He is a man who talks too much and moves too slowly. His plan involves a lot of waiting around, and the film is happy to show him doing it. The supporting cast, including Luca Argenteri and Charlotte Le Bon, get less to do. They exist to be captured or rescued, not to add depth.

Venice as Star

The Tourist is often praised for its locations. Venice is filmed in wide shots, its canals and bridges given a dreamlike quality. The problem is that the dream is empty. The film spends more time showing Venice than it does telling a story about its characters. A chase through a narrow street looks beautiful, but it does not advance the plot.

The film also uses a musical score that tries to make the romance feel urgent. It does not. The music swells during scenes where nothing is happening, and it stays there even when the dialogue suggests the characters should be worried. The sound design is loud and busy, full of footsteps and alarms, but it cannot cover the emptiness underneath.

The Chase Scenes

There are several action sequences, and they are staged with care. The cars move fast, the boats move faster, and the editing cuts quickly between angles. None of it matters. The Tourist is a movie about a man who gets caught up in a scheme he does not understand, and the action scenes exist to show how badly he fails at escaping it.

The climax, which involves a chase across a bridge, is the best example of this. It is tense in the moment, but it resolves nothing. The villain is defeated offscreen, and the film ends with a shot of Venice that pretends the story has meaning. It does not.

The Romance

The relationship between Frank and Elise is the only thing the film handles with any consistency. Their scenes together are the quiet moments that stand out, even though they are surrounded by chaos. Depp and Jolie play off each other well, and their chemistry is the film’s saving grace.

But the romance is also the film’s weakness. It exists to give Frank a reason to keep saying yes, even when the script has clearly decided that he should stop. The film wants both a thriller and a love story, and it cannot hold either.

The Length Problem

The Tourist runs long. It could have been trimmed by thirty minutes and lost almost nothing. The middle section, where Frank wanders around Venice waiting for the next plot beat, drags. The film repeats itself, showing the same streets from different angles without giving them new purpose.

The film’s schedule is simple: meet, chase, repeat. Here is how it breaks down:

That is sixty-five minutes of a ninety-minute film. The remaining twenty-five minutes are mostly filler, and they are the weakest part of the whole package.

The Verdict

The Tourist is a film that understands its own strengths and refuses to use them. It has a great cast, a beautiful setting, and a premise that could have been sharp. Instead, it becomes a dull chase movie with a romance tacked on. The chase scenes are competent but pointless, and the romance is overshadowed by the plot’s refusal to let it breathe.

The film is not a disaster, but it is a disappointment. It wastes the talents of its leads and the beauty of its location. It is a film that knows what it should be and chooses something else.

action thriller · Angelina Jolie · Johnny Depp · movie review · Venice