The Tourist

"Tourist Class"
or
"Just the Thing I Need...How Nice"

In between "Pink Panther" movies and his other comedies, director Blake Edwards used to make elegant truffles of movies with big stars, great locations, and high production values.  But whatever the veneer of stylishness they showcased, there was always a kernel of truth to what he did.  Edwards understood that even though the wrapping may be exquisite, the present it surrounded should be pretty special too.

So, I guess what I'm saying is The Tourist is a pretty lousy Christmas present.

Oh, it looks spectacular, jetting (training and gondoling, actually) from Paris to Venice, all chi-chi and ritzy, but it falls flat as a caper, a romp, or even a good time.*  Hell, it even falls flat in the half-hour review of its particulars with so many plot-holes and needless complications that, given the film's resolution, it makes little sense.  Oh, you can see how it might work...but if it is what they say it is, then why....???  (Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why....)

And when you start doing that analysis, you know that the thing hasn't really been thought through...they were just making it up as they were going along and hoping nobody would notice that the film only makes sense five minutes at a time.  You're supposed to be distracted by the gorgeous decors, the elegant suits (and suites), Angelina Jolie's wardrobe (and how she fits in it**), and Johnny Depp's clowning*** to actually figure out that the movie is a shell-game, and a shell of a movie, as hollow as a chocolate bunny on Easter, and with as much nutritional value beyond being sugary.

Hard to believe, then, that the director—and co-scriptwriter, along with Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie) and Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park, The Young Victoria)—is Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose last film was the extraordinary Best Foreign Film Oscar winner The LIves of Others.  That was a complex morality-play that moved across the demolition of the Berlin Wall, of how hunter and hunted can come to a mutual respect.  But this can't even get its internal logic right.  Even a finely-crafted Mercedes can fall apart if you don't throw some oil in it.


Add to the script problems the lack of any frisson between Jolie and Depp, both of their characters going through the motions acting as cool as cucumbers (him, comically; her, glacially).  He tries to throw some bits of business around, but they're fairly subtle (and inconsistent)—like his language malapropisms (which will fly over most Americans' heads) and a tipsy act—that they get lost in the shuffle.  Jolie has a tougher problem; she has to fight herself and her image.  This is the second feature (after Salt) where Jolie is tasked with a poorly written role that requires no acting challenge, so much as present herself in an iconic way.  In other words, she has reached the point in her career where she no longer has to be good, as she does to look good.  This is a movie in Liz Taylor mode, Audrey Hepburn-style, the queen bee with drones hovering to do her bidding. But, she receives no help at all, not from the script, not from the cast (which includes Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, and Steven Berkoff—the latter two impressive, as always), the director lighting her well and showing her at her best.  She is set apart—the only woman in the cast; she might be able to carry the box-office, but she can't carry the movie, poor as it is, and as enticing as it might look.  She is a fine actress, as her awards-gathering early in her career demonstrated.  But a few more of these vehicles and she may have to de-glam her career—as Charlize Theron (who left this project) did. 

They should have called it "The Tourist Trap," instead. 

The Tourist is a Cable-Watcher. 

* I'm sure it wasn't the movie, but I started to develop chest pains during it, and I began to think that all this sumptuousness was starting to clog my arteries, maybe I was just distressed, so, I shut my eyes...oh, for about 20 minutes...just listening to the soundtrack, and when I opened them again...gosh, I hadn't missed anything.

** In one sequence, French police are tracking Jolie's Elise Ward with cameras as she glides down a Paris street.  Two of the officers zoom in to see if they can see a pantie line, and their superior admonishes them "Be more professional, guys."  And as if to show just how professional the filmmakers are, director Von Donnersmarck cuts to a tight shot of Jolie's ass.  No VPL.  They may have been going for self-deprecation there, but, actually, I think, they nailed the problem.  "Be more professional, guys."

*** Okay, I am now calling "b.s." on Depp's maintaining an artist's pose.  This and the "Pirates" sequels point to a man picking up a paycheck.  I used to have a lot of respect for him...but now...(According to IMDB, Tom Cruise was supposed to play the part—he and Jolie have been circling each other for awhile, as he was supposed to, play Salt—then Sam Worthington, who left over "creative differences")

Salt

 "Every Man His 007 (And Every Woman, Too) Part 2"

"Salt" is the film that Tom Cruise passed on in order to make "Knight and Day," this Summer's earlier variation on the Bond Formula, allowing Cruise to fulfill a personal goal of playing "a James Bond type," while also creating a lighter version of both the character and his own screen persona.  When Cruise went into the "Knight," it was offered, as presumably to many others, to Angelina Jolie, who snatched it up and the script altered to accommodate the sex-change.  Jolie had earlier said "Thanks, but 'Dr. No' thanks" to the "Bond-girl" roles subordinate to her "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" co-star, Daniel Craig, in his first two official 007 outings, joking to Sony Studios Exec Amy Pascal that she would prefer to play "Jane Bond."  Both mega-stars got their wish in the switch, playing spies in their own personal quests to "Bond" in the world of espionage, and maybe...just maybe...should the public decide to accept them...start their own franchises.*

So...mission accomplished?


Ehhhhhh...not so much.

First, let me just say that my respect for Tom Cruise made another couch-leap after seeing "Salt" (Good work, Mr. Mapother, even if by omission).  Ms. Jolie surely should have passed on this half-baked-at-too-high-a-temperature pot-scalder that appears to be inept at every level except for attracting talent.  You look at who worked on this thing in front and behind the camera and you scratch your head that the work of all these really good people could produce such hack-work.  This is a terrible movie made by professionals.


Start with the script: Man walks into CIA headquarters.**  Says he's a Soviet spy with news of an impending assassination.  Oooh.  CIA operative Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) sends in his best interrogator Evelyn Salt (Jolie).  Let us forget that we have been told that she spent quite some time in a North Korean prison camp accused of being a spy,*** tortured, and then released in a prisoner-exchange program.  Let us forget about Post-Traumatic Stress, Stockholm Syndrome, survivor's guilt, or any other psychological result in THE REAL WORLD that might compromise her work—put it aside.  This Soviet agent (suspicious) walks into CIA headquarters (doubtful) talks about an assassination coming up (high suspicion, bordering on incredulity that the CIA might not have got some whiff of it on the cyber-wind) on Russia's own Premier (...what the what?!!  Why would Soviet agents want to kill their own...okay, okay, never mind). Then, comes the "hook:" the name of the Soviet-cell agent who will carry out the murder...is Evelyn Salt.  Caught red-handed.


Why would said Soviet spy do THAT?  Why would he "blow" an already suspiciously compromised assassination by revealing the identity of the culprit?  Mis-information?  No such complexity, as it turns out.  Events reveal a concrete reality to all he says...and that he is the mastermind behind all the eventual mayhem.  Some mastermind.  Truth to tell, its just absurd script-writing that goes from Dumb Idea A to Dumb Idea Z without any alphabetizing justification for those actions.

Remember "The Menagerie?"  It's that two-part episode in the first season of the original "Star Trek" where Spock helps his old commander, Captain Pike, get back to an "illusion" planet to end out his days free of the physical restraints that bind him.  They took the original "Star Trek" pilot, put it in the past, and built a present day conspiracy story and mock-trial to present the original pilot as evidence...a neat solution to getting some traction out of recycled material already in "the can."  Neat.  But absurd.  It is ultimately revealed that it is all a distraction (along with "phantom commodore" that everybody's been talking to) to tell the story to Captain Kirk (and the audience).  In retrospect, it makes absolutely no sense that all this deep-space chicanery has any purpose other than to waste time and get as much use out of the old material as possible.  It is trumped up drama for the sake of trumped up drama.  This is what "Salt" does for its entire length: set up an absurd situation that makes no sense to get to "the action."  It is the product of a writer-director named Kurt Wimmer, who does a fine business selling scripts to Hollywood and getting them green-lit with top talent.  His scripts of the past include the recent "Law Abiding Citizen," "The Recruit," and "Ultraviolet" and "Equilibrium," the latter two he also directed.  "Equilibrium" has a "cult" following, and I know a few people who genuinely admire it.  I'm not one of them.  It's a collection of "dystopian society" film cliches from much better movies (ie. "THX-1138" and "Farenheit 451"), with some distinctive action sequences that look good and might work as distorted fun-house reflections of reality (as might the movie), but has no basis in anything approaching human beings and their motivations.  It's a moron's "Matrix" (and I lump the eye-candy empty calories of "The Matrix" in the same Happy Meal), all razzle-dazzle sound and fury, signifying, at best, fantasy environment-as-metaphor.  "Awesome!," but absurd.


That's Wimmer's problem.  There are no excuses for the rest of the film-makers, other than making a quick buck and being over-payed for the work produced.  Phillip Noyce, the director, has made some great movies ("Dead Calm," "Rabbit-Proof Fence," the Harrison Ford Tom Clancy adaptations), but his work for producer Robert Evans, "Sliver" and "The Saint," were, to be kind, so-so.  He is only as good as the material he is given.  Simon Crane, who coordinated the stunt-work and directed the second unit, has done some exceptional work on the latter day Bonds, but here, his work is piece-meal, more intent on obfuscating the absence of the star in the action than actually making a coherent action sequence.  And ace editor Stuart Baird, who cut together the first "Superman" (amazing work, that) and "Casino Royale" can only try and make the joins look less seamless.  Such good work has come from these gentlemen in the past that one wonders just what kind of chaos they were working in to provide such below-par work.****


And the cast is cast adrift.  Jolie's character is such a cypher, her motives unclear, without a hint a of Manchurian Candidacy, that she relies on her "inscrutable" look (eyes narrowed, mouth slightly amused) for far too much of the movie's running time.  One wonders what Chiwetel Ejiofor and Andre Braugher (who is criminally wasted here) saw in the project that they might have been able to bring to it.  And Schreiber, who plays Salt's only comrade at the C.I.A., tries to gamely make his operative seem somewhat competent.*****

"Salt" is a festering wound of a movie and the only "smarts" it has is the pain it induces watching it. 


After "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," "Salt," and the subject of this Saturday's  "Take Out the Trash" post (which, incredibly, beat out today's movie for essential hackery), it is very apparent that we are in the "Dog"-Days of Summer.  Approach any and all Friday premieres with caution.

"Salt" is a Waste of Time.  For your health, avoid "Salt."

* The results are in for "Knight and Day," and although I thought it was quite good, it bombed disastrously at the box-office, owing to poor reviews (Hey, don't blame me!) that centered—mostly—around its star.  There's a knee-jerk reaction (emphasis: "jerk") on the part of some critics; I was summarily dissed on another site for which I write for lauding the movie. primarily because the writer wanted to take a few precious minutes...or hours...to hammer on Cruise.  It was evident he hadn't (nor would he) take in the flick, so his criticisms were so much hot air floating above the Earth until it ran out of oxygen.  I didn't reply to it, because—really—why bother?  As far as a "Salt" franchise, even though the movie ends with her as a fugitive running through a skimpy forest while avoiding detection from circling helicopters with no heat-sensors evidently (!!), the weekend's box-office portends a quiet shuffling of it under the Sony Pictures rug...until Oscar season when there will be ads promoting it for awards.  Hope is a thing without feathers.

** That should be a joke-starter, but everything in "Salt" is played with deadly earnest.  Hmmm.  If only Jim Varney were still alive—"Deadly Ernest" would make a hell of an absurdist action film.

*** Sometimes you get it right, I guess, even if you're North Korea...How's that missile program going, guys?  Maybe you should switch to oceanography—that's what you're good at hitting...

**** Do I walk into these things with prejudice?  No.  All I knew was Jolie, Schreiber, Ejiofor and that Cruise passed on it.  I didn't know Noyce directed this until the End Credits (and, frankly, my jaw dropped when I saw his name, as he can be great), that Baird edited, or Crane supervised the stunts.  None of this I knew until the end, as I sat in stupefied surprise...these guys, who I admire?  Kurt Wimmer's name I didn't recognize...but looking at his credits I saw the through-line.  His movies are dumb high-concept polyglots that fall apart if you ask one question.  But, somehow he keeps working and attracting good talent.  But, then, so does Satan...

***** While in a high-security setting, poised to foil the assassination, his character actually says "If she pulls something here, it'll have to be pretty amazing..." (which, of course, it is).  This, after seeing Jolie's Salt play "Frogger" on the tops of 18-wheelers as they rumble through clover-leaves of a highway.  Gee, d'ya think?

Alexander

"Alexander" (Oliver Stone, 2004) In the two-way race getting the story of Alexander the Great to the screen between Baz Luhrmann and Oliver Stone, the latter got there first, having worked on a screen-play since 1989. Luhrmann's announcement of an "Alexander" project was probably just the thing Stone's film needed to get off the ground, and his thorough planning shows (historical inaccuracies aside): this is one of Stone's deftest film--a combination of his macho liberal ethics and his pre-disposition to turn everything into braying Myth. Here he's dealing with Gods and Titans and men who reach beyond their grasp, and if one thinks this one has a political agenda talking about a King wanting to chase his Persian prey into the mountains, you're only scanning the surface for easy targets.*

Stone's going for epic statements here of dreamers and the pains they inflict on Society** and a pretty good tying up of some major themes in several of his films without descending into his fall-back of the "Good and Bad Fathers of our Soul." Oh, there is familial stress going on constantly with two of the more watchable stars as Alexander's warring father and mother King Phillip and Olympias (Val Kilmer and Angelina Jolie***). Their battles for the betterment of Alexander (Colin Farrell) make up the intrigue that Stone keeps flashing back to once Alexander reaches Babylon and established his first Alexandria city-state. But the main focus is Alexander and his battles from Ireland**** Macedonia to Persia to India, each one given their own specific vantage point. The desert combat in Persia is given a neat over-view by a mythic hawk, the latest in a long line of familiars haunting Stone protagonists. The India battle is an epic jungle gore-fest between man and beast that turns into a red nightmare, but is affectionately begun with an old-time movie iris-out.

The film is so full of "rules of thumb," you begin to wonder if there's not a training manual with the thing ("A commander never gives an order he wouldn't carry out himself," "Don't surrender your reason to passion," "Moderation in all things" and the film's mantra "Fortune favors the bold"), and as gritty as Stone makes it (and there's a lot of blood-spatter flying through the battle scenes), it has the pristine quality of those Hollywood sword-and-sandal epics where even the Persian city of Babylon seems immaculately free of dust. Stone seemed inspired by the look of "The Lord of the Rings" and its way around a vast story-line, but seems to favor his Myths well-scrubbed.

Still, it's an epic that was filmed in 93 days, despite far-flung locations and looks miraculous despite the tight schedule. For all the things that could conceivably have gone wrong, Stone's Cecil B. DeMille styled dream project managed a lot of things right.

* Stone's "W." biography would show up at the end of 2008, looking rushed and a little wasted and without much to say. You can't satirize a political satire, and the joke ceased being funny a long time ago.

** In an odd post-mortem, Alexander's kinsman Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) supposes that Societies are inspired by dreamers and then exhausted by them to the point of wishing them failure, if not death. That's an interesting thought coming from Mr. Conspiracy Theory. Stone's also one of those liberals who likes to include all of us to enjoy his guilt—"It's all out faults." Hey, speak for yourself, mack!

*** Stone is particularly praise-worthy of his actors on the commentary track of this film and with good cause--Farrell shows off the promise that his over-hyped career has only suggested, Kilmer is as boisterously good as he's been in years, and Jolie again shows why she's one of the most commanding actors on the screen these days. She has a line reading ("Loves. Loves!") that wheels between conflicting emotions with such quick-silver speed that it nearly whips your head around. One would be tempted to see that she's the latter day Ava Gardner if not for one thing—she's a better actor than Gardner. Stone loves a touch of madness in his actors. Jolie is his perfect match.

**** Farrell doesn't disguise his Irish accent, and the kid who plays him (very well) in the early sections of the movie does a fair register of Farrell's brogue. But most of the actors have Irish accents that at times is distracting, but somehow seems fitting for the folk-tale blarney with which Stone tells the story. You go with it, as it feels right. Kilmer's accent is American. Jolie's is faux-Greek.

A Mighty Heart

"A Mighty Heart" (Michael Winterbottom, 2007) Probably not the best move to put out a movie on the Daniel Pearl story so soon after the tragic event, but it was a chance to draw attention to the quickly-established Daniel Pearl Foundation, and while the film is now out on DVD, it's a better forum for that message.

The story of Pearl's kidnapping and killing in Karachi, Pakistan is told from the point of view of Mariane Pearl (Angelina Jolie) as anything else would be merely speculation. It is the main problem of the movie (and a strength) that little is known about the crimes and makes the event a sucking black hole of non-information that dominates the entire film. Winterbottom has to make fast work of the long hours of worrying, chasing down leads and building up hope. This is done with a near-documentary style—the cameras are never still and locked-down camera angles are not to be seen, giving the entire film a feeling of flux—nothing stays the same for very long, although the waiting and the heat and the tension are constants—the impression is given that the entire film was caught on the fly, in glimpses.

The tension is different out on the street as the camera looks for some semblance of order in the urban chaos. Police and intelligence forces comb the city alleys shaking down anyone who can shed some light in the dark. Irrfan Khan, an Indian actor, dominates these scenes as (simply) "Captain." Khan is a restrained actor who seems to seethe emotion out of his pores rather than express them through his face.* He's always interesting to watch. And fortunately, Angelina Jolie is an intelligent enough actress to play the tension of the scene without histrionics. She's playing a journalist, after all. But a very pregnant journalist. And the tension of every scene can be seen in the muscles in her throat. Someone recently wrote that Angelina Jolie has become one of those iconic stars that has to work extra hard so you no longer see Angelina Jolie but the character she is playing. Here, she does just that.

Pearl herself picked her for the part.

* He also plays the police captain interrogating the kid in "Slumdog Millionaire." Oh, that's where you've seen him....

Changeling

"Collateral Damage"

The work of Clint Eastwood, senior citizen-director, has been an interesting mix of genres: Western, War, Mystery, Urban Dramas, Romances. But they've carried a consistent theme: They're stories about non-conformists bucking the system and sometimes paying the price, frequently focusing on the fringes of society that get caught up in "the big story," and how it affects lives and the fabric of society.

In the course of these films he's directed a number of actors in off-beat roles that garner attention and win awards, roles that have a tendency to focus on the strengths of that particular actor's skill-sets: Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Laura Linney, Meryl Streep, Ed Harris, Tim Robbins, Kevin's Spacey and Costner, Sean Penn, Adam Beach, Ken Watanabe. Now, Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich and a whole raft of excellent character actors tell the story of the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders from 1928, another of those weird stories of early life in California and the ever-present existence of corruption in the caretakers of the area. Jolie and Malkovich are excellent, he has rarely been this restrained, and Jolie carries the movie with a beaten-down fury and odd little grace notes that pass over her like quick-silver. Eastwood seems to focus on her lips (notice the poster?), in fact, one of the interesting choices is to show the period Los Angeles locations and recreations in a grey bleached-out quality, while Jolie's Christine Collins character provides the color, particularly the garish red lipstick that she wears perpetually. But Eastwood makes use of an incredible cast of new faces and terrific performances. Amy Ryan (nominated for "Gone, Baby Gone" last year) has another fine role in this, and Colm Feore ("Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould") plays L.A. Police Captain James Davis with a snaky smile and simmering demeanor. But there are ideal performances from relative newcomers. Michael Kelly plays an L.A. detective who manages to break the case, and its a measured unsentimental portrait of a desensitized cop developing a conscience. Jeffrey Donovan plays a nuanced heavy as a police higher-up who just wants to bury the case. Geoffrey Pierson has an anonymous character actor's face and a resoluteness as Collins attorney that surprises. Denis O'Hare is hissably good as an asylum's head doctor, and Jason Butler Harner is a fascinating combination of Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson as Gordon Northcutt. But the best of all may be young (14) Eddie Alderson, who has two scenes of heart-breaking regret that chill you right down to the bone.

It would all be for naught if the script weren't right, and J. Michael Straczynski's screenplay (Eastwood insisted on filming the first draft!) is taut, lean...and traceable. Some fabrication and combining of characters was accomplished, but after a a year of research, Straczynski (Babylon 5) wrote that draft in eleven days. There are scenes that feel a bit rote, but that would be nit-picking. Straczynski takes a personal incident, opens it wide and brings it to a satisfying, if not buttoned up ending. Eastwood films it in his usual spare style, lingering on the shots of Old Los Angeles remembered from his youth, meticulously recreated with CG and the extraordinary production design of James J. Murakami.

Eastwood has another film, "Gran Torino," opening January 2009. The trailer for it plays with "Changeling." He stars in it, too, after saying he was retiring from acting. I don't think "retire" is in Eastwood's vocabulary.

"Changeling" is a matinee.

Kung Fu Panda

Kung Fu Panda (Osborne and Stevenson, 2008)

Yes, it is another vehicle for Jack Black to play the hapless hero who blunders his way to success in as crass a way as possible in a plot line that has been recycled more times than the air in a Boeing 747 but leave that all aside, for King Fu Panda is a visual feast that will have you rolling in the aisles like a drunken flight attendant. The opening credits are enough of a treat in themselves but the movie is well done enough to make you laugh out loud and to suffer through the oh so obvious story arc which is delivered pretty much with tongue firmly lodged in cheek anyway.

For me, it is the best Dreamworks Animation movie since Shrek*.

The voice talents include:

Dustin Hoffman
Angelina Jolie
Jackie Chan
David Cross
Ian McShane
Seth Rogen
Lucy Liu
Randall Duk Kim
James Hong

Kung Fu Panda is a eye-pleasing, side-splitting full price ticket.

*Like Shrek, it has its share of parodies, references and gags aimed at the parents in the audience.

The Good Shepherd

"The Good Shepherd" (Robert DeNiro, 2006) Francis Ford Coppola was the fellow who spearheaded this project, and bless my tapped telphone line it has that same sort of "Godfather" family epic-feel to it, with just enough schmaltz and soap to keep it from getting too caught up in its overarching theme of constant paranoia. It also carries the similar pall of "the sins of the father" to it. You just know that the ambitions of the men in the movie will doom their families, if not themselves. Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is recruited out of college to join the Skull and Bones secret society, and with his first ratting out of a professor (Michael Gambon), his career as a spy takes the fast track. It's derailed slightly when a quickie with the Boss's precocious daughter (Angelina Jolie) results in pregnancy and a marriage of convenience. Then, when fencing with the Soviets keeps him overseas for years, his fairweather family-life causes a Cold War on both sides of the Atlantic. Soon, Wilson learns, a little too late, that he should trust no one, as he plays against (and develops a mutual admiration with) his equal in the KGB. But its the same old story we've gotten used to in the spy genre. Everybody's a snake looking out for Number One, and trying to make "that Big Score," and yeah, okay, there's only a gray flannelled thread of difference between the spy network and Corporate America. Which brings us right back to "Godfather" country. CIA-Mafia-GM, there's no (*yawn*) difference. The only likable character in the entire film is director Robert DeNiro's turn as "Bill Sullivan"--a veiled version of Bill Donovan, but he's there for two quick dashes of cold-water perspective and is gone. Matt Damon seems not to age at all during the film, whereas Angelina Jolie does seem to gain twenty years. This film came out at the same time as "The Good German," and I was hoping someone would combine them into "The Good German Shepherd." Well, I can dream...

It's interesting (well, to me, anyway) to wonder why Damon chose this part, seeing as how his "Bourne" films are merely the "fantasy" side of the "spy" franchise. If he thought that playing the "button-pusher," rather than the blunt instrument was an acting "stretch," he couldn't be more wrong.