The assassination of the U.S. president is told from several different perspectives, as the Secret Service tries to catch the shooter.
ACTION
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Vantage Point (2008)Directed by Pete Travis
Written by Barry L. Levy Starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Forest Whitaker, Edgar Ramírez, Ayelet Zurer, Saïd Taghmaoui, Sigourney Weaver, Bruce McGill, Eduardo Noriega |
While watching Vantage Point, I couldn't help but think I'd seen this movie before. Then, it hit me. I was basically just watching Olympus Has Fallen or White House Down, only this time the filmmakers were using the same gimmick from Kurosawa's Rashomon. And it could've worked too. Even though Vantage Point was just another "president in danger" flick, it had something that made it unique. If it weren't for the painfully bored performances and cardboard cutout characters, this one could've been memorable at the very least.
When President Ashton (William Hurt) is shot at an anti-terrorism summit, veteran Secret Service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) tries to track down the shooter at the hectic plaza. We get to see the different stories that led each character to the plaza, which was interesting. The problem was that the villains' grand plan, including the obvious twist of Matthew Fox's fellow agent being the ringleader, made no sense and was never really explained. Killing the president would've made sense, but kidnapping him to (I guess) ransom him in the name of an unnamed terrorist group just doesn't work. If you ask me, the focus should've been more on Forest Whitaker's american tourist, as he was the only actor who seemed to be in it for more than a paycheck. Vantage Point suffers from the same issues the plague every generic action thriller that ends up either in the back of Netflix's catalog or in the $5 bin at your local Wal-Mart. There's zero substance and way too much style, to the point that the film relies on mindless action in place of basic story structure and character development. It never works, and the outcome is always the same. You'd think somebody would've learned by now. |