The Tourist

This laughably inept thriller finds mystery woman Angelina Jolie being shadowed through Paris and Venice by Scotland Yard's Paul Bettany in the hope that she will lead him to her on-the-run lover who has stolen millions from vicious gangster Steven Berkoff. To throw him off the trail, she draws oblivious holidaying maths teacher Johnny Depp into her web and soon both the cops and Berkoff's henchmen are in hot pursuit, believing him to be the fugitive thief. Quite how so much on- and off-screen talent can conspire to make such a mess of a movie is astonishing. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (whose debut feature The Lives of Others won a best foreign film Oscar) quickly loses control of his convoluted and hackneyed narrative, and the writing credit he shares with British favourite Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) and The Usual Suspects Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie suggests that the clunky dialogue and ridiculous plot twists are the result of three men working independently of each other. Depp's character is an uneasy blend of hammy matinée idol and Clouseau-like farceur, while Jolie is in the running for the most annoying and insipid ice maiden in cinema history.