Movies

Vantage Point Review

The President (William Hurt) is visiting a summit in Spain on terrorism when someone tries to assassinate him. Dennis Quaid stars as Thomas Barnes, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the President. After taking a bullet for the president in a previous assassination attempt, he is burnt out, taking medication and considered a risk by his fellow agents. His partner, Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) deflects criticism and is the lone voice of support. The crowd is filled with suspects and the question is who did it? Did the American tourist (Forrest Whittaker) see the shooter? Is the Spanish police officer part of the plot? Exactly who or what did Network TV see?

 

In this movie, eight different characters viewpoints of an assassination attempt are examined to see what the truth really is. In that sense, it is similar to Rashomon. Vantage Point uses a gimmicky ‘rewind’ (just like rewinding a tape on a VCR) that is annoying after the second time it happens. Bit by bit, we see the event from several different sets of eyes and the plot unfolds.

 

While the action sequences are intense and exciting, the plot sadly is formulaic. While the ending is next to impossible to decipher until it is presented, the series of events are mostly routine and odds are you’ve seen at least some of them before. Still, the movie has its redeeming qualities and several actors (Quaid, Fox and Whittaker) perform quite well. Quaid in particular shows that he can still lead an action movie.