Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
(R)
**
The most notable feature of The Tourist may be “the startling lack of chemistry” between its stars, said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Viewers “lured into theaters” by the pairing of Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp will be disappointed to find that looks don’t travel far in this remake of a 2005 French film. Jolie’s character, the lover of an international fugitive, seduces an American traveler she meets on a train in order to mislead government agents into thinking he’s the man they’re hunting. But Depp’s low-key turn as the dupe has “a paralyzing effect” on potential romantic intrigue. This kind of froth also requires a director whose style makes the most of “snappy dialogue and ravishing travel-book images,” said Scott Tobias in the A.V. Club. Germany’s Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck isn’t that filmmaker. The “meat-and-potatoes direction” that marked his poignant The Lives of Others here feels “astonishingly lifeless and awkward.” His flawed film is still a “decent diversion,” said Christy Lemire in the Associated Press. If you go in pretending you’re on vacation, The Tourist can be “mindless, escapist fun.
