The Tourist

Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Steven Berkoff, Rufus Sewell. Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others). Writers: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Christopher MacQuarrie (Valkyrie, The Way of the Gun, The Usual Suspects), Julian Fellowes (The Young Victoria, Vanity Fair, Gosford Park), adapted from the French film Anthony Zimmer, written and directed by Jérôme Salle.

So according to imdb.com The Tourist revolves around Frank (Depp, natch), an American tourist visiting Italy to mend his broken heart, when extraordinary woman Elise (Jolie, presumably) deliberately crosses his path. Who wrote that? It's terrible. Who could possibly want to see such a film? Compare that to the blurb for Anthony Zimmer (click the link, there's too much of it to reproduce it here... actually, don't, the French film plot summary may give away crucial information and constitute a spoiler for The Tourist. Jesus Christ this is complicated.) upon which The Tourist is based. I'd see the French film first, me.

But then let's examine the form. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck made The Lives of Others, one of the best films of the last ten years, an accomplished, extraordinary piece of work (if you haven't seen it, do - even I've seen it. In a cinema and everything.) There's a really odd writing mix of the director, along with Christopher MacQuarrie, who's reliable, even if he has never really reached the heights of The Usual Suspects (Valkyrie was okay, but the script was really rather good), and Julian Fellowes, who wrote the rather wonderful Gosford Park. Johnny Depp makes really interesting choices, Angelina is usually good value, and there's a heavy-weight Brit-actor supporting cast too. The only worry is that I've never heard of Anthony Zimmer, and it was released there two weeks before I went to live in Paris. That's a minor worry though - many great films have been made from adaptations of mediocre predecessors. Ocean's Eleven for example.

The The Tourist trailer looks pretty good.

D'you know, I might actually go see this.

Like that's going to happen.

Oh well, I'll download it from iTunes in a couple months' time.

But I'll look forward to it.