The Tourist (2010)

  I didn't really know what to expect from this movie.  I didn't see any of the previews, didn't research it, and wasn't going to see it until my mother told me to.  She wants me to see as much of Venice as I can before I go there in February.  For her, preparation involves Casino Royale, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and The Italian Job.

The Tourist was charming.  I can't think of a more appropriate word.  Angelina Jolie is beautiful and mysterious, Paul Bettany is scowling and intense, and Johnny Depp is, well, he's Johnny.  He has a way of infusing the simplest gestures with disarming humor in very Cary Grant or William Powell-like ways.

This movie had more than a touch of Charade to it, and a little North by Northwest for good measure.   It even put me in mind of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which is one of my all-time favorite books.

Frank Tupelo is a widowed math teacher on holiday in Europe.  He meets a mysterious and beautiful woman on a train to Venice and then his world is turned upside down.  Elise Ward is the paramour of a man wanted by Scotland Yard for tax evasion and by a gangster for embezzlement named Alexander Pierce.  Pierce's face is a mystery after $20 million worth of plastic surgery so everyone is following Elise in the hopes of catching him.  Suddenly, Frank is being shot at, chased across rooftops, and menaced by Russian bodyguards.

I'm not quite sure how it would stand up to repeat viewings but it's definitely worth the price of admission.