[Spoilers Ahead]
For most of its run-time, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Tourist is a vapid, if pretty, spy-thriller/comedy/romance flick about a poor sap played by Johnny Depp who, while on vacation in Europe, is pulled into an espionage cat-and-mouse game thanks to the actions of a beautiful spy played by Angelina Jolie. Their romantic chemistry is...passable at best, but usually awkward. Then at the end of the film there is a twist that complete squanders what little good will I had for the film: it turns out Depp's character was actually the alter-ego of a master spy who just so happens to be Jolie's on-again/off-again lover. This makes no sense because the film violates one of the most important rules involving plot twists: the characters involved forget about the twist when they are by themselves. We are repeatedly shown Depp being a frightened, ineffectual, and stupid character when literally nobody else is around him. You could argue that he was doing so on the off chance that he was under surveillance. But the film makes it clear when he is being spied on and when he is not being spied on. The character might not know this, but the audience does. And plot twists should service the audience first, the characters second. If the audience were informed that literally every move he made was under surveillance, we could buy this twist. But the international authorities are repeatedly portrayed as so laughably incompetent that they can't watch somebody without being painfully obvious to their quarry. So we have too many scenes where both the audience and Depp know that he is not being watched wherein he still acts like a moron. As a result, the twist is forced and ridiculous.
5/10
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