Non-Review – The Tourist
How does this happen twice in one year?
The script for The Tourist is better than the script for Knight & Day, but both were completely workable ideas with completely workable screenplays and each had two major movie stars who could absolutely deliver on the core idea of these films… retro Hitchcokian/Wilderian thrillers with a sense of humor and fun roles for their stars.
And both fail to deliver because both films picked the wrong director.
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck made a great film in The Lives of Others. It is intimate and smart and demanding… which is not only the opposite of what The Tourist is, but is the opposite of the intent of The Tourist. It’s palpable from the first scenes of the film… something is amiss… the film is like watching a woman in a very tight pencil skirt trying to trudge through 2 foot deep mud while showing no signs of the difficulty on her face. What the HELL are they up to? It’s not Mission: Impossible (or Salt). It’s not really a drama. And if it’s meant to be mysterious, perhaps they needed to have something real to unravel. And then Depp shows up… in a comedy performance. He and Jolie work haaaaard to try to make it work. But this terrific director… uh… how to put it…
They had a romantic thriller that might well have starred Cary Grant and Grace Kelly… light on its feet… airy… funny… and they hired a German director!!!!
With due respect to Germans who have a gift for light comedy… seriously… I loved Mostly Martha, but even that director would not be the right fit for this material.
Oy.
And Knight & Day? James Mangold has delivered big for pretty much every movie star he has ever worked with. Nominations and good box office all over the place. And K&D wasn’t a disaster, financially or creatively. But it needed a light touch that the director of Walk The Line, Girl, Interrupted, and Copland was not the right guy. I have come to like and appreciate Mangold more and more over the years. But funny? No.
It reminds you of how delicate good movies are. And how really talented people can be just the wrong people for a particular project.
The script for The Tourist is, I think, better… but I think Knight & Day is the better film. But both films could well have been great fun for audiences… romps that would be watched over and over again… the kind of films that make you smile – and stop – when you remote past them on your cable/satellite when they get there, just for a moment, and then dragging you in.
But they aren’t. Sigh.
I forget where I first read the complaint “its not that Hollywood makes bad movies, its that they keep making the same bad movie.” With these two, Date Night and last years Duplicity it seems like Hollywood just can’t seem to nail down a great action comedy.
(cough) RED (cough).
Red’s a different animal to me, Cad. That’s the Sneakers/Ocean’s putting the band back together thing.
Our of Sight lives between the two forms, as Get Shorty lives between two other forms.
It says something to me that Cruise never really tried the form until this year’s release. Not has Depp, really. Jolie and Pitt in Mr & Mrs Smith was a variation on it.
It needs star power and a solid storyline and a director who has the touch. And I think the ones who have had it – like Frank Oz and Jonathan Lynn (sometimes) – have been put out to pasture. So it’s all women on it, like Nora and Nancy.
I think the next generation of these directors is probably from loooow-budget indie land. A guy like Tom Bezucha going 5 years without a new film is surprising.
Speaking of Tom Bezucha, my wife loves The Family Stone (I can’t stand it) and watched it last weekend. $60 million ($92M worldwide) on a budget of $18M. How has he not made 2 or 3 films since then?
Knight and Day was a TOTAL DELIGHT.
Cruise never has and never will make a bad movie. Ever.
Also if you count Killers, there should be three movies in this discussion.
Action. Comedy. Star Power. Solid Storyline. Director who has the touch. Sorry, Dave, but that’s RED to a T. I have no problem with sub-divisions, but that’s not what HCat was expressing.
Not an embarrassment, just kind of….dull. (If pretty to look at.)
It reminded me of “The International”–another Hollywood-financed genre flick by an acclaimed Teutonic helmer released by Sony that was surprisingly flaccid despite all of the talent involved. My reaction to both films was kind of a giant shrug.
I wouldn’t be surprised if its forced to share ‘plex screens by Xmas Day once the deluge of new product has arrived.
What amazes me in all the reviews for “The Tourist” are all the negative comparisons to “Duplicity,” as if “Duplicity” were some paragon of the form/genre. “Duplicity” was perhaps the most over-praised movie of the last ten years, as awful as “Michael Clayton” was good. It’s one of the few times I can think of that critics got it totally wrong and indifferent audiences got it totally right — it was shrill, smug, cold, abrasive and populated with unlikable characters in a “who cares” situation. I never understood the love for that movie and still don’t.
I don’t think there’s actually much love out there for Duplicity. I don’t remember rave reviews.
As for The International… yes… but Sony came into that one very late and basically picked up rights for a small piece of the cost. Not sure what the deal on this one is, but I am guessing that Sony ate a bigger slice.
And Cad… sorry… though you were responding to me, not hcat. Nevermind.
SELECTED CRITCS REVIEWS FOR DUPLICITY FROM METACRITC:
New York Post Lou Lumenick 100 Whip-smart, sexy and delightfully twisty romantic thriller.
The New York Times A.O. Scott 100 Superior entertainment, the most elegantly pleasurable movie of its kind to come around in a very long time.
Village Voice Scott Foundas 90 Comedy seems to have liberated Gilroy, who directs Duplicity with the high gloss and fleet-footed hustle of a golden-age Hollywood craftsman.
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan 90 A throwback to the days of old-school caper movies like “To Catch a Thief,” Duplicity is just the kind of sophisticated amusement you would expect from filmmaker Tony Gilroy.
Variety Todd McCarthy 90 Smart, droll and dazzling to look at and listen to, writer-director Tony Gilroy’s effervescent, intricately plotted puzzler proves in every way superior to his 2007 success “Michael Clayton.”
The New Yorker David Denby 90 An enormously enjoyable hybrid, a romantic comedy set at the center of a caper movie. But the froth arrives with steel bubbles–the tone is amused and mordantly satirical.
USA Today Mike Clark 88 So with its smart writing delivered by an in-synch quartet, savor Duplicity as the ideal spring gift.
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt 80 The movie is fun, with plenty of intrigue and suspense that will have audiences clutching at their arm rests.
I had the same reaction to “Duplicity” as “shill” the first time I saw it.
But when I decided to give it a second look on HBO–thanks to many of the rave reviews cited above, particularly Scott, Clark and Denby’s–I did almost a complete 180.
Maybe I should give “Michael Clayton” another try. I remember thinking it was grossly overrated three awards seasons ago.
i also liked ‘duplicity’ much more on second viewing; the first time round i thought i might not have been watching closely enough since i found it a bit too convoluted for its own good (and i actually wondered if i might be a touch thick for not quite following the plot on my first go, but then i heard the same thing from others who’d seen it and i felt relieved), but on second viewing i understood the ins and outs of the corporate grift and appreciated the weird twisty complexity of it, and thought julia and clive had a nice little chemistry/quiet adult sizzle thing going on, and now i count myself as a bit of a fan
(meant to say: depp looks weird in ‘the tourist’, sorta freaks me out for some reason)
Liked Duplicity quite a bit on my first and only viewing. Sure, it was a bit convoluted, but it was polished adult fun with two genuine movie star turns. My only qualm was that the film ‘seemed’ so complicated that I almost wished I could have waited until DVD so I could have paused for an eventual bathroom breaking. Either way, I certainly wouldn’t call it an ‘action comedy’. I don’t remember any real action/violence in the whole picture.
Leah- I couldn’t believe how (relatively/comparatively) easy “Duplicity” was to follow plot-wise a second time (and nearly a year after my initial viewing).
Plus, that was while watching it in 15-minute increments over a series of days (I dvr-ed it).
The first time it just seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
“Plus, that was while watching it in 15-minute increments over a series of days (I dvr-ed it).”
lol, movieman, i’ve had a few of those incremental three-dayers myself, filmus interruptus
yes i agree, the plot actually isn’t that convoluted in hindsight, but it’s one of those weird examples where you actually don’t realise that until you’ve watched it again!
(the second time out i watched ‘duplicity’ and ‘state of play’ together and felt quite satisfyingly adult afterwards, almost smugly so)
Leah: I keep promising myself to watch “Syriana” and “Michael Clayton” again.
At this rate, sadly, it’s probably never going to happen.
I’m still wading through my raft of year-end screeners…with top priority going to the stuff I haven’t watched yet, of course.
I may see daylight again around Groundhog Day, lol.
(Wait: do they have GD in New Zealand???)
no, we don’t have groundhogs but we have a shitload of rabbits. i like the movie tho.
(a double bill of ‘syriana’ and ‘MC’ sounds like a fitting combo. i love double features, i do it quite often)
“But it needed a light touch that the director of Walk The Line, Girl, Interrupted, and Copland was not the right guy.”
How convenient for you to leave out “Kate & Leopold” (A film I am quite fond of, by the way. Sure let’s pretend that he never made a light comedy before since it goes against your stupid blanket “logic”.
But that’s fine because stupid blanker logic is all you do, eg. “I loved Mostly Martha, but even that director would not be the right fit for this material.” Based on what? Mostly Martha?
And you know what, I bet Mangold can do funny just fine. K&D was about as funny as it could have been considering the script that it had.
“But they aren’t”
Speak for yourself.
P.S. The Tourist could have been ten times worse. I mean they could have given it to Ron Howard to direct. Zing!
And to extend this logic, Hitchock was wrong for North By Northwest.
The man could do nothing without his storyboards and it shows. All of his films look like they had been made up of a multitutde of short pieces that were stitched together. Rarely had I had a felt that a Hitchcock film was a collection of scenes, no he was a director of shots and it is something that had always bothered me.
To that extent Michael Bay and Tony Scott are extreme versions of Hitchock. It’s true. The only things that make their approaches different is how fast they cut their films – their shots go by a lot faster.
I am not saying that the man hasn’t made some great films – I just think that his filmmaking credentials are rather overpraised and that as a director he is somewhat defined by his limitations, even they do enclose some serious talent.
I left out Kate & Leopold out of generosity. However, it’s still not the form that Knight & Day was.
I don’t really mind you disagreeing, but I am fascinated by how calling me stupid stands in place of an argument.
You feel that Knight & Day was directed with a deft touch for the comedy beats? Great. I don’t.
The Hitckcock thing… kidding right? The guy who directed To Catch A Thief and Strangers on a Train wasn’t the right guy to shoot North by Northwest? Please explain.
The Mostly Martha reference was to German film in general. Perhaps you will offer up the long list of German romps.
And is taking a shot at Ron Howard supposed to mean something to me?
Kick some ass, Poland, for real.
Everyone’s so negative about movies here.
Most movies are good. If I see 100 movies a year, I like/love/had fun at 90 of them.
Maybe some of you dudes should stick to sports or opera or books or something.
I tend to think that a true MOVIE GUY like TARANTINO or SCORSESE has a BLAST at ANY movie he sees. I know I do.
I’m just happy to see a damn movie. I never understand people who come grousing on message boards acting all put out that they saw a movie that doesn’t live up to some notion of what a PROPER MOVIE is. And NINE TIMES OUT OF TIME, their cinematic ideal is some shit they saw and loved when they were young, before they got all old, mean and cynical.
I see it every day on here, on every blog I visit. I understand having a discerning taste, but, really, it’s just MOVIES. And even the lamest Shawn Levy romcom is probably more fun than reading a book or watching a 4-hour football game with anonymous dudes you can’t tell apart falling on each other then taking 17 minutes to get back in line.
BE MORE POSITIVE.
“Everyone’s so negative about movies here.”
i am not negative about movies here in the slightest. quite the contrary
edited to say, what people can be here is what i would term ‘pretentious’
The plot is unpredictable. My mom can predict it precisely, but I don’t believe it. In the end, it’s perfectly match with my mom’s deduction.
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