Vantage Point - Review

Director: Pete Travis
Starring: William Hurt, Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker
Writer: Barry Levy
Runtime: 90 minutes

Vantage Point is a funny little movie. I say funny, because it's hard to pin down how much, or how little, you like it. In the end, I liked it, and quite a lot.

The President of the United States (William Hurt), arrives to give a speech in Spain. Secret Service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) is there to protect him. Television producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver) is covering the story from the truck. Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) is a tourist in the crowd, taping things with his camcorder. Javier (Edgar Ramirez) is a mysterious bystander.

Bam. The President takes two right in the chest, and down he goes. Ka-boom. A bomb goes off, wiping out scores of people and sending the bandstand sky high. But was he the President, or a stand-in? And who shot him? And who planted the bomb? And will they get away with it?

We see the film from six or more different "vantage points," one by one. We stay with Sigourney Weaver while she tells different cameras to take this shot and that shot, zooming in and out on the carnage. Then we follow Thomas Barnes as he tries to find out where the shooter was when it all went down. Then we follow Forest Whitaker as he tapes the foot chase between the secret service and a suspect.

You get the idea.

The audience I was with got the idea pretty quickly, too. It is impossible to review this film without calling attention to the audience, because they became an integral part of the film.

Vantage Point does not play out in real time, nor does it play out sequentially. Rather, when we are done following Barnes, the film "rewinds" back to the beginning and we see things from Forest Whitaker's point of view. Then we rewind again, and see it through the eyes of the President. So forth.

If this sounds like a way to anger an audience, you would be right. But I admired the movie for it. It had guts. My only concern for the director was this: can you make each "post-rewind" segment so interesting, so exciting, that I will quickly forget that I'm seeing the same old story over and over again?

The answer is yes, and I think the audience felt the same. After the first "rewind" sequence, the audience said nary a word. Then the next one came, and the audience muttered. At this point, I got nervous for the movie. Can it hold them? Then the next rewind came, and the audience groaned aloud, and one guy shouted, "Where's Jack Bauer [of 24 fame] when you need him?" and everyone in the theater broke up laughing.

When the final rewind came, I thought there was going to be a riot. And I loved it. Most times, when an audience talks, I get angry because they're talking about their dinner date, or how somebody saw Bobby kissing Susie at the bowling alley. This time, the talk was directed at the movie makers. It's been ages since anyone's thrown popcorn at the screen, and I enjoyed the irony: the audience was upset, but they were playing into the filmmaker's hands. They would holler and boo after each rewind, but were quiet within ten seconds. Nobody left the theater. They wanted to know what happens next.

The film is quite clever, and the editor deserves extra credit. The thread of each "vantage point" comes together well, and there is certainly enough suspense and intrigue to keep the audience guessing. It is only later that you realize the film takes place in a span of roughly thirty minutes, from the time the President is shot, until the film's conclusion. It is the different characters' stories that stretch it out, and the film does it at breathless speed, knowing they'll lose the audience for good if they dare slow down for a dumb love story subplot.

One other gutsy aspect of the movie was the body count. Men, women, children, you name it. Hell, even a darling reporter gets it, which shows how heartless the writer is. The film is violent, but not gory, and action fans should like it.

There are certainly flaws with the plotting when you go back to think about them, but the movie doesn't let you think about them. It doesn't call the flaws into question until after you've left the theater, which means it's done its job. Other things do jump out at you, though, and will bother you if you dwell on them, ie, Could someone really talk on a cell phone during a hectic car chase while driving stick?

The cast is quite good. Sigourney Weaver is an afterthought in the script, but Whitaker and Quaid are fine, and Edgar Ramirez plays his tough-guy role very well, not letting it slip into robot mode.

The only problem I had with the film is that it heavily leaned towards cornball at the end. The brief dialogue exchange between Hurt and Quaid should have been left on the floor, as it is cheesy and totally unnecessary. I'm amazed that they left it in.

Vantage Point is a good action yarn. Whether it is more frustrating than entertaining is for you to decide.

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