Movie Review: Vantage Point (2008)

This thriller is about an attempted presidential assassination. Rather than simply telling the story in a linear manner, director Pete Travis takes a page from Memento (not to mention the Japanese classic Rashomon) and instead tells the story through the eyes of several different people, including the news producer covering the president's speech, his secret service body guard, a tourist with a video camera who ends up a Zapruder wannabe, and others. We see the same events played out eight times, but from a different vantage point, and through that the story of what actually happened emerges.

The movie seems to have gotten some very mixed reviews. Count me among the enthusiastic fans. Travis makes a fast-paced film that never slows down. There are no scenes that drag the film to a halt, like in so many lesser thrillers. The big car chase late in the film is on par with the chase through Paris in The Bourne Identity. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. The movie is exciting and captivating, everything you want in a thriller.

This isn't to say there aren't contrivances and logic holes. Our Zapruder wannabe, played by Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, runs through the streets of Salmanca, Spain with his trusty video recorder, chasing the police chasing a suspect. Why? So he can be positioned to take a key action late in the film. And there's one very key contrivance involving the president that is necessary for the film but doesn't make a whole lot of sense as a presidential action.

But who cares. Film is supposed to be entertaining, and Vantage Point is certainly that.

It's difficult to assess the acting. Because of the structure of the film, no one gets a whole lot of time on the screen. Sigourney Weaver's role is little more than a cameo. Dennis Quaid gets the most time on screen, but most of that is taken up in the great car chase, so there's not a lot of room for character development. But all the main actors do what they can in their roles.

There won't be any acting Oscar nominations for Vantage Point, but again it's supposed to be entertainment.