First Hit: Who didn’t know that Johnny Depp was Alexander all along?
Yes it is mean to give away the whole point of the film in the first line of a review, but it is also mean to put two strong actors in parts that don’t work well together, in a story that is poorly created, build some fluff around it, then make it about life and death and hope we like it, let alone believe it.
In the scene where Elise Clifton-Ward (played by Angelina Jolie) strolls down the train looking for someone who is about the same height as Alexander (Depp) how would she have picked him? There is nothing about the “description” (about the same height) we are given about whom she should pick that would have had us believe that Depp’s character is Alexander’s look alike.
You can’t pick the height of someone sitting down. But, OK, we will live with this, but then there’s all this fluff about Depp being Frank Tupelo an American math teacher tourist who is just willing to follow, or more accurately be commanded by Elise to do what she wants.
First off Depp gave me no feeling he was a math professor and second he didn’t seem the meek person his role called for. Her goal was to set him up to be the real Alexander to throw the cops off. Why?
Scotland Yard wants Alexander because he owes 744,000,000 in taxes on money he stole from Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff) who gained his money from crime and being a ruthless mobster (why isn’t Scotland Yard after him?). Seriously, is this really a Scotland Yard crime? Even as both Scotland Yard and Shaw believe that Frank Tupelo isn’t Alexander they think Alexander will show up soon to see Elise.
But Elise is also a Scotland Yard undercover cop and some of the team wonders if she went rogue. Oh and Elise falls in love with whomever she is last with or that’s what we are told by Scotland Yard to have us believe she is falling for Frank Tupelo who is really Alexander. Confused yet?
Just watch the film some Sunday afternoon when it is on video enjoy the beautiful scenes of Venice and wonder what could have been.
Jolie is gorgeous as always and the scenes as she walks through the train and through the ball the staring is probably real. Jolie can be captivating. However, this isn’t much of a part and there isn’t much for Jolie to grab on to from an acting perspective. Depp is not very believable in his role as a math teacher tourist. There is an incongruence that just doesn’t make it work. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck directed this and I’m not sure why.
Overall: If you’re bored someday, pick up the DVD or use On Demand and watch some mindless fluff.