The information sorting and gathering required by Barry L. Levy's screenplay feels like night school as opposed to a great night out at the movies.
Vantage Point (2008)
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Reviews Counted:151
Fresh:53
Rotten:98
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: Vantage Point has an interesting premise that is completely undermined by fractured storytelling and wooden performances.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for sequences of intense violence and action, some disturbing images and brief strong language.
Runtime: 90 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Feb 22, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $72,266,306
Synopsis: A presidential assassination attempt is told from multiple points of view in Pete Travis's directorial debut, VANTAGE POINT. U.S. president Ashton (William Hurt) is in Salamanca, Spain (though much... A presidential assassination attempt is told from multiple points of view in Pete Travis's directorial debut, VANTAGE POINT. U.S. president Ashton (William Hurt) is in Salamanca, Spain (though much of the film was actually shot in Mexico), to announce plans for a major global summit on terrorism. But as he stands behind the podium in front of an adoring crowd (with protesters blocked off from the stage), he is shot twice, followed shortly by a small explosion and then a massive blast. Secret Service Agents Barnes (Dennis Quaid), Taylor (Matthew Fox), and Holden (Richard T. Jones) immediately jump into action, trying to find the terrorists responsible amid all the chaos. The thriller first shows the events through the eyes of television news producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver), and then the film rewinds, replaying the action from a different point of view. Each perspective reveals a few more clues, then rewinds again, taking the audience through the assassination attempt and its aftermath again. VANTAGE POINT has the feel of the 1950 Akira Kurosawa classic RASHOMON, told with the speed of the television show 24. The all-star cast also includes Forest Whitaker, who gives another fine performance, playing an American tourist recording everything on his video camera. The rewind device--reminiscent of the Bill Murray comedy GROUNDHOG DAY--could have been gimmicky, but instead Travis and first-time screenwriter Barry L. Levy make it work, as more details are revealed with each flashback, leading to a pulse-pounding chase and surprising finale. [More]
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Zoe Saldana
Director: Pete Travis
Director: Pete Travis
Screenwriter: Barry L. Levy
Producer: Neal H. Moritz
Composer: Atli Orvarsson
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment
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Release:
Jul 1, 2008
Reviews for Vantage Point
A story that could easily (and more effectively) have been told in about half the time.
An assassination thriller that boasts the glossy tourist vistas of an airline magazine combined with a serious case of instant-replay-itis.
Vantage Point offers a modicum of entertainment but it requires viewers to react more forcefully from the gut than the mind. It's viscerally effective but lobotomized.
The bones of a good idea for a conspiracy thriller lie buried in the corpse of Vantage Point. It feels more like a movie with a personality disorder.
Offers less entertainment than just awareness of how nearly every American male role seems like it was intended for Harrison Ford.
The question regarding Vantage Point is how this thriller with the Groundhog Day fixation was allowed to meander out of Columbia Pictures so overloaded with bad acting.
Nothing in Vantage Point quickens the pulse as much as the realization that, with each successive turn of the wheel, we come one step closer to the end.
The setup is so riveting, the suspense so carefully prolonged, that I didn't mind when it unraveled into lunacy near the end.
The problem with Vantage Point, or at least one problem, is that it depends too much on coincidence. The film relies on things breaking a certain way for nearly every plot advancement.
What Travis has done is nothing short of create a new kind of American action film that feels European in the same way that William Friedkin's "French Connection" did.
Cool game plan on paper, unfortunately, the execution lacks. Further, this is not the subject matter with which to play games.
Once the full panoply of bad guys is disclosed, the movie becomes just another absurdly prolonged hot pursuit, complete with a lost little girl for a dollop of extra melodrama.
A tight, solid mystery/thriller that keeps you guessing until the end.
The ending, suffice it to say, is one you won't soon forget no matter how much you'll want to.
Choppy, point-of-view twisting thriller that never rises above its gimmickry.
Starts off well but then tries to replicate the fast-paced frenzy of The Bourne Ultimatum with an improbable car chase.
Alas, this well-crafted terrorist plot is sandwiched between two terrible acts, making for the kind of movie that you should walk into late and sneak out of early.
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