Movie Review – Vantage Point

Vantage Point (2008) – Just minutes into the announcement of a new international anti-terrorist agreement the President of the United States (William Hurt) is shot.  The story of what happened is watched through the eyes of a member of the Secret Service (Dennis Quaid), an American tourist with a video camera (Forest Whitaker), a TV network producer (Sigourney Weaver) and others.  Between them they will try to piece together what happened.

This is another movie with a great concept and a great cast that simply doesn’t manage to pull it off.  The gimmick here is that we supposedly are sing the same events from multiple “vantage points”.  Except we don’t really.  It’s always  from the director’s point of view so you keep seeing things that can’t be seen from that “vantage point”.  It’s kind of disappointing.

Then you get general breakdowns in logic.  Lots and lots of them. Quaid’s character is returned to the Presidential Protection Detail even though he is obviously physically and mentally not recovered from a previous incident protecting the President.  The Secret Service pat down a Spanish police officer yet never manage to find his shield even though its on his belt right where every plainclothes cop in the world carry it.  They also fire round after round at the fleeing Spanish cop in the middle of a huge crowd of innocent bystanders (despite the fact that the character never fires his weapon and is running AWAY from the scene).  All part of the usual portrayal of the Secret Service as utterly incompetent clowns who can barely stay out of their own way.  (I can’t decide if the agents should be outraged or just quietly content to let the world underestimate them) Oh, and if you don’t figure out who the bad guy is virtually immediately then you’re not paying attention. Toss in the standard movie hawkish Presidential advisor who wants to bomb everything in sight.  There’s also a huge logic hole at the center of the entire story.  Then at the end, just when you think they can’t come up with anything more ridiculous, they do.  There’s a fairly absurd, almost deus ex machina, moment that brings the action to an end.

In the end I spent way too much time thinking “Yeah, saw that coming” to be able to get into the spirit of the movie.  It relies on a series of movie cliches and unlikely events to carry the day.

Again, if you have a couple hours with absolutely nothing better to do you might take a shot.  Otherwise?  Pass.

Rating -** Not Impressed.