Angelina Jolie: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Elise Clifton-Ward - The Tourist (2010)

I've already laid into The Tourist in my article on Paul Bettany last month, but it's worth reiterating how utterly risible it is. The fact that it garnered three Golden Globe nominations (in the Musical or Comedy category, no less) only adds to the increasing amount of proof that the Golden Globes are meaningless and irrelevant. Even more baffling is that one of these nominations was for Jolie's performance, which is as frothy and unbelievable as you can get. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark (who won an Oscar for The Lives of Others), The Tourist is nominally a remake of the French romantic thriller Anthony Zimmer. It tells the story of American college teacher Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp) who has a chance encounter on a train with the attractive and enigmatic Elise Clifton-Ward. Elise is wanted by both British and French police in connection with her lover Alexander Pierce, a tax evader who has had extensive plastic surgery to alter his appearance. Now Frank is suspected of being Pierce and is forced to go on the run. The Tourist takes all the silliest elements of Shattered, Johnny Handsome and the Mission: Impossible series and then presents them in an empty and uninspiring manner. One of its biggest problems is the lack of chemistry between Depp and Jolie: they both look incredibly glamorous but seem in a kind of awkward, haughty competition. Because we can't bond to the central pair, the film is never compelling enough as a straight thriller, and trying to view it as a deliberate comedy will get you nowhere. While Henkel von Donnersmarck's camera may be more interested in Jolie's body than her dialogue, she doesn't help matters, playing to type and relying on a sense of mystery which never transpires.