Vantage Point

Vantage Point (2008)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Pete Travis

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Said Taghmaoui, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt

From: Columbia/Relativity Media

The best $1 I spent at a Kmart.

Actually, that isn't true, but this was purchased at that department store because I somehow remembered the film from when it came out and as it was so cheap, why not see it for the first time sometime in the future, which managed to be “last night?” It's a shame that Kmart is only barely hanging on as in the past it was quite popular and I went to the one in my hometown often when I was a kid. When this movie was purchased at my current local location, that place was on its last legs and its only merit was having random DVD's for cheap.

As for this movie, it ain't no Rashomon. Technically it's different from that as instead of presenting the same event from the viewpoints of several different people for the purpose of the audience attempting to figure out who is telling the truth (if anyone) or if what actually happened is a mix of several things... here, several viewpoints are shown for the purpose of telling a clear story in a certain way. The idea is fine... unfortunately the story was lackluster.

President of the United States William Hurt is in Spain with other world leaders, participating in a counter-terrorism summit. Naturally, the President was not a popular figure, so a terrorism shoots at him and blows up the entire event. As we see the plot unfurl, the other characters include American tourist Forest Whitaker, bitchy news director Sigourney Weaver (why has most of the roles I've seen her in the 21st century be accurately described as “bitchy”?), Secret Service agent Dennis Quaid, and Spanish cop Said Taghmaoui. This has a nice cast (there's also Matthew Fox, Zoe Saldana for a bit, Edgar Ramirez, Bruce McGill, James LeGros, and Holt McCallany) yet I wish the tale being told here didn't have some obvious “well OF COURSE this happened” moments that I looked at in a derisive fashion or such things as a cute little girl character that is put into peril, as why the hell not? I also had issues with the climax and what the entire conspiracy was, for reasons that I won't delve into as that would be spoilers.


I cannot say the movie is bad as in front and behind the camera things are competent and the musical score is interesting. It's unfortunate that with what must have been a complex task editing together everything into the final product, that Vantage Point wasn't better.