The Tourist : worst 'twist' ever?

you could watch a movie called "the assassination of abraham lincoln" and be more surprised at the ending than you will be at this one.

All twist films are tested on test audiences to see if they are too predictable.

It's a shame some people feel they have to announce how clever they are. But I reckon most of the people who claim they saw a twist coming are liars.

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"Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends..."

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But I reckon most of the people who claim they saw a twist coming are liars.

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Thats an incredibly condescending statement MrCottonsParrot, especially for a movie that was largely criticised for having an obvious twist.

But even if you didn't guess what the twist was, most people will have suspected one was coming, and many people even expect a twist in any sort of mystery/thriller movie these days.

"I reckon most of the people who claim they saw a twist coming are liars"

I figured Bruce Willis was dead and a ghost within the first five minutes of The Sixth Sense. Doesn't make me special, just means that some movie's twists work, sometimes they don't.

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lol - No they aren't. Where do you get that from?

The 'twist' here was totally predictable to everyone. In fact, I'd argue it wasn't an attempt at a 'twist'. It was uncertain throughout, but the notion he might really be Alexander was planted early. The question was whether Jolie would figure it out, not whether the audience would.


"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

I just watched this movie after waking up at 3am trying to go back asleep, missed 1/4 of it making breakfast and still figured Depp was pierce. Does it make it bad? no, so many other things make this a mediocre movie. The 'twist' as you describe is hardly that. This wasn't some epic mystery novel whose whole theatrics revolved around the final plot twist ending. I would even say Depp being pierce wasn't even a congratulatory prediction as it felt like the natural ending. If he wasn't pierce and some random person, we haven't seen the whole movie suddenly appeared and was like "hi, i'm pierce" that would have been quite an awkward ending. Your analogy of a surprise ending, really? Was it a big surprise frodo tossed the ring into mt doom, were you surprised the good guy wins 99% of the time. You expectations of movies are off, like saying the dialogue in a Stallone movie was horrible; it's a flippin' action movie, you expect too much.

When Elise and Frank meet on the train I suggested to my husband one of two possibilities:

1. Elise is really Alexander Pearce.

2. Frank is really Alexander Pearce.

So, the twist was not hard to figure out at all.

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Am I anywhere near the imaginary cliff?

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It's pretty obvious right from the start that Frank is Alexander whatever his name is.

However much one considers Depp and Jolie to be both at their prime and in many of their previous works, they usually provide the goods when top-rate performance is needed; in this movie, they both look like amateurs, just playing to the camera.

It's a silly movie with nil chemistry between the two leads.

I was kinda hoping Elise was Pearce too, just to mix it up a bit!
I like Depp, but it was soooo predictable that he was Pearce.

I was hoping it was the inspector, and the note and investigation was his way of killing her off to bury his past identity.

All in all it didn't really make sense. This guy is smart and successful enough to owe a billion in backtaxes, and this plan is really the best thing he can come up with? Screaming spanish to hotel clerks and police officers while dodging bullets in his pajamas? You know what would have been a better plan? Getting the money first and *then* trying to woo his heavily surveilled ex.

And what is he trying to prove to himself with his Beauty and the Beast scheme anyway? That she would fall in love with him if he tricked her into thinking he's a completely different person, and hence prove her loyalty through her disloyalty?

"I think those men are watching us..." Because he's paranoid and reads too many spy novels? No, because she's Angelina Jolie and she's wearing blood red lipstick and a $30,000 couture suit from a few decades back. It would have been stranger if they weren't checking her out.

Frodo didn't toss the ring into Mt Doom. Bit of a twist.

Yeah, I saw it coming too. Although at one point I hoped I was wrong and that they would actually turn the movie into the improbable romance of a super lady falling for a simple guy from Wisconsin. That would have made a better movie, in my opinion.

But the reason why I thought it would be him was that the whole plot seemed to resolve around that incoming twist and nothing else. They insisted on how incredibly good Alexander is (to justify that preposterous ending) and the premise of the story was that Alexander wanted to regain Elise's trust. I mean, there was no reason for leading her around otherwise, she wasn't after the money or anything, just him.

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There is one really good reason why you should have figured out the twist. The letter at the beginning. Once we realized she is a spy then she would have known they would have the technology to recover the information in the first note he sent her.

Knowing they would not be looking to closely at the guy she chose (the top guy even said she was using him to distract them), that was the perfect place for him to 'hide' in plain sight.

The only down side to this is that these top police minds could not figure out that she would know they would be able to read the letter and thus should not have been fooled by this

I'm not even sure you can call it a twist!
For me a twist is something that totally knocks you out and pulls the rug under you. Something so clever and brilliant that you feel that you must watch the film a second time to see where it all came to.

With "The Tourist" I barely feel surprised. It wasn't even a surprise. It felt like they just thought the film needed a twist so they just came up with something at the moment.

Yes, good point.

You would have thought once the police knew the ruse from the burnt note that a thorough background check on Frank would have been conducted?

The letter gives it away to any thoughtful viewer without having to know that she's a spy.

It's obvious from the beginning that the phrasing of the letter was designed to throw them off track. What's preposterous is that when they deciphered it, they didn't pick up both Depp and Jolie at the station anyway to see what was what. They never bothered asking themselves WHY he wanted her to get on that train and find a patsy, and why he sent a note to do so.


"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

I thought throughout that the twist they used was too stupid and obvious, and must have been discarded early and never made it past test audiences. I mean, where was the film going to go besides where it went?

They used a few different numbers for Pierce's plastic surgery costs. Whichever figure it was, for several tens of millions of dollars, that brazilian doctor should have been able to make Alexander Pierce look like Angelina Jolie. THAT would have been a fun and entertaining twist.

Spock! Form an away team! You, me, Bones, Scotty and umm... Ensign Smith!

I agree- worst twist I've ever seen and guessed in the first 2 minutes. Logically why would they allow any other schlep in the film who would ride off into the sunset with "the precious"?

It kept me guessing until the very end.

Yes. The worst twist EVER.

I think the 'twist' that ends up being the biggest twist in the movie is R.Sewell's character. At the beginning, when watching with my best friend, I thought he was a cop from some other unit/country than P.Bettany's character and my best friend thought he was a paid employee/butler/bodyguard of Pierce's meant to make sure Elise was able to safely elude the cops and make it to the correct train/train cab.
When he shows up at the black tie dinner, my best friend told me she had thought he really had to be someone from a different agency that was trying to lure Elise and Frank out to get at the crime boss dude - that Frank & Elise were his bait for the bad guy just like Elise was P.Bettany's bait for Pierce. I thought he might still be a worker for Pierce (my theory was that Pierce needed to get her away from the crime dude & the Brit agents, so he had his bodyguard/butler/etc. swing by with a note for her and the entire purpose was to draw her away from the party to a safe location while Pierce would be left to deal with the crime boss).
Neither of us ever figured he would turn out to be pretty much exactly what Frank was supposed to be. He turned out to be a tourist having been offered a free trip through Europe in return for dropping a few notes and running the risk of being arrested for something that no one would be able to prove he'd done.

"There is still hope." - Arwen