The Tourist Starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie

This is not so much a formal review of the movie The Tourist as it is my own personal reflections on this film and its two stars Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.

Johnny Depp is my favourite contemporary actor and Angelina Jolie is my favourite contemporary actress.

Those of you who know me know that my ultimate dream is to become a motion picture director like my film making idols Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.

I remember back at the first blogging site I was ever at which was called Journalspace- I wrote a blog back in 2007 on how Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie had not yet appeared together in the same motion picture.

Needless to say the fact that my favourite contemporary actor and favourite contemporary actress had not appeared together in the same movie by that time I found to be a great perplexing mystery.

I remember at the time saying if I ever did become a motion picture director, I would like to be the first to direct Depp and Jolie together in a film.

Well it didn't happen- I didn't get the chance to direct Depp and Jolie in their first motion picture together.

Whether I'll ever become a motion picture director period- only time will tell.

This past week was the first time I ever read the Wikipedia entry on Johnny Depp and was shocked to discover that his first two names were John Christopher because my first two names are John Christopher although he goes by his first name John (which he lengthened to Johnny) and I go by my second name Christopher (which most people shorten to Chris).

I always felt a closeness and a bond to Johnny Depp for some reason. Not in the sense that we're soul mates (because that isn't where my sexual orientation lies) but in the sense that we're soul brothers for lack of a better word.

There's just something about the man and the characters he plays that I can personally relate to most of the time.

It said in the Wikipedia article that Captain Jack Sparrow is Depp's favourite character and the one he most personally relates to.

Which I found interesting if true because Captain Jack Sparrow is my favourite Depp character and the one Depp character I most relate to as well.

Of course Captain Jack Sparrow is more of a fantasy projection of myself because I've not nor have I ever been a pirate in the Caribbean who's commanded a mysterious ghost ship called the Black Pearl.

It's interesting in Depp's latest film The Tourist that he plays a character more like me in reality. He plays a math professor (although when I taught in a community college, I taught Geopolitics and International Relations rather than math) and someone who comes across as nerdy and geeky- a person who enjoys reading spy novels (which I do as well) and whose real life has so far been nothing like he's read.

He happens to encounter a mysterious beautiful woman (played by Angelina Jolie) on a train and it's then that his life changes.

On a personal aside, I've always wanted to encounter a mysterious beautiful woman on a train as well (or anywhere else for that matter!) and have my life take an exciting turn as well.

Depp's character named Frank cannot figure out why this woman named Elise has chosen to sit down with him and then dine with him on a train.

He's even more baffled when he encounters her in Venice and she invites him to spend the night in her hotel room.

Next morning, he's even more baffled when he wakes up to find her gone and men banging on the door and shooting bullets into it.

This really is an excellent film.

It reminds me of the sort of film Alfred Hitchcock would direct if he was living in the 21st Century.

That old cliche about a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat- well this movie will do that.

It's full of surprising twists and turns this film- and you are literally wondering what will happen next.

For those people who have seen the trailers to this movie-

I have to say- you know how most movie trailers you watch these days- you can pretty well figure out what's going to happen in a movie just by watching the trailer- you don't really have to go see the movie because the trailer pretty well tells you everything you need to know.

Well with that in mind, after watching the trailer for The Tourist I thought I pretty much knew what was going to happen in this movie just by watching the trailer but I wanted to see this film anyway because after all my two contemporary faves- Depp and Jolie were in it.

Anyways after seeing the film in its entirety, I can say that both the movie and the trailer are true masterpieces of genius.

Because the trailer and the way it's made- really does give you the impression of what this film is going to be about.

The way the scenes are put together in the trailer tell you that's the case.

But when you actually do see the movie, everything you thought you had guessed about its contents is actually blown away I'd say at about roughly 7 minutes into the film.

Everything you thought you'd guess from watching the trailer is wrong and the movie is full of completely surprising twists and turns.

I suppose the danger with the trailer is because a person thinks they can guess what this film is about just by watching the trailer and says, "Now I don't have to pay money to see the whole movie" - if a lot of people do that- there's the danger this film won't make money at the box office- because people will think they have guessed what this film is going to be about just by watching the trailer.

And they'll have missed seeing what I believe is the first truly Hitchcockian style film made in the 21st Century.

This film is a masterpiece in my opinion.

I think Hitchcock would have been proud to direct this film- it's that good.

The scenery- Paris, the train, Venice, the classically elegant hotel room where Depp and Jolie stay- such style, class and elegance I thought had died when the grand old espionage and thriller films of the 1930s, '40s and '50s were no more to be made.

And Angelina Jolie's dresses in the film- wow!- that's why I like watching movies of the '40s in particular because they were the best and sexiest and truly feminine women's fashions that came out in film in that decade.

And Jolie's dresses are like that in this movie- sexy and yet so incredibly lady-like at the same time- putting a lie to this modern notion that you have to dress like a slut in order to appear sexy.

And there's actually a grand ball (and a grand ball in Venice at that!) in the movie which particularly enthralled me. Of course that's one reason why I like Jane Austen novels and films based on Austen's books because there's always a good grand ball and dance somewhere.

And the film is like many of Hitchcock's films in that there is also a classic romance developing amid all the thrills and intrigue and espionage.

I give this film 5 stars out of 5 and two thumbs up.

I thought when I wrote that blog entry on the topic back in 2007 that if you put someone of Depp's charisma and someone of Jolie's charisma together in the same film, you'd come out with a masterpiece.

And this is what has happened with The Tourist.