The Tourist

Friday night, we watched The Tourist.   Have you seen it yet? If not, then let me give tell you a little about it.  The movie opens in Paris, France where Elise (Jolie) is under surveillance by the French police and Scotland Yard.  The sultry beauty is not the target, but her lover.

As she has tea at her favorite café, she receives a hand-delivered a message by courier from her lover.  She is given specific instructions to board a train bound for Venice, Italy and to pick out a man who is a close match to him to fool the authorities that the unsuspecting man is the one they want, Alexander Pearce.

After destroying the letter by fire at the café table and escaping the police for interrogation, she bounds the train for Venice.  Sizing up the possibilities, Elise picks a good candidate and settles into the booth occupied by a gentleman reading a spy novel.  There she meets Frank (Depp), an American math teacher.

Before long, the pair seem like a couple, as they chat and have dinner.   That’s when the adventure starts.  By the time, Frank leaves the train,  the authorities, and local gangsters who Pearce has stolen $744 million from believing Frank is their man.

Depp’s character entwined a degree of humor that only he can pull off successfully, as he finds himself being chased by men who want to kill him landing him in the custody of the police, and then to be sold out by a dirty cop to the very men who were after him.  The cat and mouse game heats up with Elise coming to Frank’s rescue.  Is there love in the air?  Hmmm. they are in Venice after all.

While the trailer looked promising, I didn’t get a strong intensity over watching it.  However, I sided on the optimistic side of the movie and elected to make this a choice to get as soon as it became available.  Boy, am I ever glad we got it, too.  You’ll be delighted with the twists in the plot that surprised me up to the end.  This is a fun flick and one I’ll enjoy watching again and again.  It’s safe to say, I give this movie two thumbs up