Vantage Point

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Forest Whittaker, Said Taghmaoui, Zoe Saldana, Ayelet Zurer
Directed by: Pete Travis
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
2008

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: When the U.S. President (William Hurt) is shot in Spain, two Secret Service Agents (Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox) try to hunt down the shooter, but soon discover an even bigger and more sinister plot.

Review:

Tim: I struggled a bit with what to think about this movie. On the one hand, it is pretty much exactly what I look for in a movie (or rather, it has many of the elements of movies I love). It is a movie about an assassination attempt of the President, involves a very different twist on the typical linear storytelling, and features a very good cast. Parts of me absolutely loved this movie, and parts were a bit disappointed.

The most important part of the movie to discuss is that the film unfolds through half a dozen different perspectives. The 90 minute movie actually takes place during about a 15-20 minute time period. We see this same period of time from completely different vantage points, and we only understand the whole story once we've seen them all. It is pretty interesting to watch as the movie gives you little pieces of the overall puzzle. This is massively gimmicky, but pretty cool, too. However, it also involves one of the worst parts of the movie- the entire film lasts about 15 minutes real-time. That is simply not enough to tell a great story. In some ways, this makes the movie feel much smaller than it should have. Also, with each different vantage point, we're brought back to the beginning of the movie, so we see the same intro about 6 different times. This gets old very quickly, and soon becomes downright annoying. Some of the vantage points are better and more interesting than others, which also tends to bog the movie down at times.

Outside of the vantage point gimmick, the cast is fairly strong. I really loved seeing Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox as the two Secret Service Agents. They are both actors I really like and respect, and I loved them in their roles. William Hurt is very good as the President of the United States. Sigourney Weaver is perhaps the weakest big name in the cast, as she has far too little to do. I almost wondered why she bothered to be in this movie at all. Forest Whittaker adds in a good performance. At times, his acting is questionable, but he generally adds a good sense of realism to the movie. His normal character really grounds the action and suspense that we see. The rest of the supporting cast is actually quite good as well.

As I mentioned, I debated whether I was going to buy into the gimmick or not. In the end, I decided that while the movie relies too much on the vantage point aspect, it is still an innovative and interesting way to tell a story. I appreciated this attempt even though it wasn't done flawlessly. Vantage Point does have some terrific action sequences, features at least one stunning twist (which could have been even more stunning, but it works), and is generally suspenseful and exciting. The various vantage points do get a bit tiresome, but they make this movie feel fresh and unique enough to make up for some of those flaws.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7.5



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