"Vantage Point" refers to the different points of view individuals have of the same event. This storytelling device was made famous by the Japanese film "Rashomon". In this instance, the event in question is the shooting of an American President (William Hurt) when appearing at an anti-terrorism summit in Spain. The movie opens with the arrival of the President, protected by his Secret Service detail, Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox). For Barnes, it is his first assignment on the presidential detail since recovering from a bullet he took for the President some time ago (apparently, people like shooting at this president). The story continues to the shooting, followed by some explosions as we have a full-scale terrorist attack. Then, the movie stops and starts again as we see this unfold from another vantage point. This happens around five or six times, so it does get a little frustrating watching the same thing happen over and over and over again. They do manage to feed little details each time to keep it interesting. Once we have gone through all of the different viewpoints, the rest of the film is non-stop action as the Secret Service, led by Barnes, close in on the bad guys. There are a couple of interesting plot twists, some of which you don't see coming (one of which is a bit of a "cheat", but I can't expand on that without giving it away). The cast is very good and this is an entertaining movie overall. It is not without some problems, however. One issue was the character of Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker), an American tourist with a video camera who, for some reason, decides he is the only man that can save the world. The things he does as the movie unfolds are just not realistic at all. One of the other issues was one particular dialogue exchange. The President is being pressured by one of his National Security staffers (Bruce McGill) to give an order to strike a suspected terrorist camp. "We have to act strong", he says. "No, we have to BE strong", the President responds, "We have the world on our side, we must respect that and not squander it." It was an incredibly transparent dig at the current administration and actually took me out of the movie. Why Hollywood insists on doing stuff like this is beyond me. If you can get past seeing the same events over and over for a while, though, you have a pretty entertaining movie. Grade: C+
Trailer:
No comments:
Post a Comment