Vantage Point

Year: 2008
Director: Pete Travis
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, Edgar Ramirez, Sigourney Weaver, Eduardo Noriega, Said Taghmaoui, Ayelet Zurer

This film has one heck of a trailer. I love it, can't get enough of it. It's just my affection for adrenaline pumping trailers. Watching it made me decide that I had to see this film, no matter what anyone says.

Vantage Point is a Rashomon style narrative on the sequence of events that take place when the President of America (William Hurt) attends a summit on the war against terrorism in Salamanca, Spain. We first see the events unfold from the point of view of the media crew covering the event, headed by Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver). Then suddenly, the president gets shot as he steps to the podium. Panic and chaos ensues. And before anyone can make sense of the goings-on, a bomb explodes on the scene and carnage follows.

Then the film rewinds back to the starting point and moves again, this time from other points of view of the incident. Among them, the Secret Service agent assigned to protect the president, Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), a local cop with an agenda (Eduardo Noriega), Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker), an American tourist filming the event, and also the president himself. Every time we watch a different point of view, another clue is revealed, another secret is uncovered until all the players in the game cross paths at the blood pumping climax. Naturally, nothing is what it seems, and everyone has a secret.

Director Pete Travis does an excellent job in keeping the pace tight, and manages to keep his audience on the edge of their seats in the short time frame that the film takes place. The plot only covers the same 20 minutes or so, in order to accomodate all the points of view of the players. Despite that, the film is short at 90 minutes long, which is good, otherwise it would have been dull to see the same events stretch themselves out too long. And although some people may not like to see the same thing again and again, I feel that the different points of view made it possible for the film to not look too similar every time they rewind, so it's not exactly a dejavu experience, at least not for me.

The cast performs well, from the most important to the least. Quaid is always dependable as the ageing hero who never quits, and here he gives Thomas Barnes the same quality. Whitaker, despite not getting much screen time here, also acquits himself well. His Howard Lewis is just an ordinary guy who finds himself thrust into an extraordinary situation, and Whitaker pulls it off so well, you'll forget he was the same guy who played the ruthless Internal Affairs cop in The Shield. He's truly talented. The international cast, who basically play the masterminds and instruments of the attack, leave a lasting impression too. Weaver gets very little to do, however, and Matthew Fox, who plays Barnes' partner, is much better on Lost than he was here.

As for the storytelling, I like the different narrative style used here, but let me tell you this: it's not entirely perfect. After seeing the whole film, one feels that if they had not used the different POV style, Vantage Point can still work as an effective action thriller. And the fact that Travis did not use it well enough to reveal the final twist at the end, pulls the film's excitement down a few notches.

But in the end, I still like it very much. It's nice entertainment for the masses. (4/5)