"Roshomon" meets "Crash" in this 90-minute political thriller, which is really 15 minutes of action rewound and replayed from the perspective of eight different individuals. The setting is Salamanca, Spain, and the occasion is a summit meeting of the world's biggest Islamic and western nations who have agreed to meet for the first time in order to jointly address the problem of terrorism.
The Journalist
"Vantage Point" seems most alive in the opening sequence, which is narrated from inside a mobile broadcast center. Sigourney Weaver plays Rex Brooks, a seasoned pro who directs her reporter, cameramen, and in-studio technicians the way a quarterback calls the shots in a hurry-up offense. She snipes at her reporter (Zoe Saldana) for getting into political punditry, and wonders aloud when she sees a Secret Service agent at the U.S. President's side whom everyone thought still inactive after he had taken a bullet to protect the most powerful man in the free world, "Why didn't we know about this?" Weaver really nails this part, so much that you wish you could see more of her throughout the film. In one of the bonus features we're told that all those monitors in the broadcast center were really green screens, and that makes her reaction shots all the more amazing. When they watch the President recoil from two shots, then hear an explosion and she tries to calm her reporter down so she can report, it's powerful stuff. So is what happens moments later, when another explosion takes out the whole façade of the main building at the Plaza Major (which was really a set built in Mexico).
Then, at segment's end, the camera rewinds while we hear rewind sound effects, back to the same time when we joined Weaver. Only the perspective changes.
The Secret Service Veteran
Dennis Quaid plays the main man in this quasi-Cubist narrative. He's Thomas Barnes, a now-jittery veteran who sees assassins in every quick crowd movement and camera flash. Quaid also nails his part, conveying a mixture of fear and confidence, paranoia and common sense that makes it easy for us to see all the gray areas that are layered in this narrative. We watch him see flutters of curtains in the building across the way, hear him phone in his suspicions to an unresponsive command center, and watch his reactions after the President is shot. But he's unbelievably polite, whether demanding video from the broadcast control center or from an American tourist whom he saw filming everything on his camcorder, and for a guy who's taking medication to calm his nerves, that doesn't feel right at all.
The Tourist
Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker plays Howard Lewis, a recently separated man who's out to experience adventure, and ends up thinking he knows who killed the President in a chaotic setting. Half of his attentions are directed to trying to tell people what he saw, and the other half are aimed at trying to protect a little Spanish girl who bumped into him and dropped her ice cream as a result.
Then it's that dreaded rewind again. Once was fine. Twice was bearable. But come on. We get the point. It's going to be a multiple rewind telling of this story. Must we really go through the backwards tape every single time? It's one of two major annoyances in this film, the other being first-time screenwriter Barry Levy's preoccupation with that little girl. That whole tourist/little girl thread really could have been removed from the film without great loss. On the other hand, we're told, at some point, that a trusted Secret Service agent has gone "rogue," and there's never sufficient development to explain why. We watch two brothers involved on the fringe of these terrorists, and come to realize that one really might be a local cop who really might have been rushing the stage to help, rather than hurt the President. But in times of terror, any young man with a beard is suspect. More on the core of the plot, rather than the periphery, would have made this a stronger film.
The President
William Hurt plays President Ashton in convincing manner, though his role is exceptionally small. He's probably grateful for the rewind structure, or else he would have been on-camera for just minutes. But as Jason P. Vargo complained in his theatrical review, "not much makes sense, logic wise." Apparently the White House is chronically deficient in devising exit plans, because there's no clear course that's taken once tragedy strikes. Even small things are disturbing when it comes to logic. This scene is like the World Trade Center collapse, with people rushing everywhere, explosions, shots, and so on. Amid all this chaos a relatively calm and lucid Howard Lewis takes the little girl he rescued and hands her off to a police woman. "Look after her. I'll be back," he says. And the woman nods and accepts the girl. End of shot. I've run into more frantic and uncooperative cops at airports when there were no shots, explosions, and stampeding people to clog their attention spans. Then there's the funniest line in the film, albeit an unintentional one, which is also tied to logic (or the lack thereof). As Agent Barnes reaches the President, whose face is covered with blood, he asks, "Are you injured?"
"Roshomon" meets "Crash" in this 90-minute political thriller, which is really 15 minutes of action rewound and replayed from the perspective of eight different individuals. The setting is Salamanca, Spain, and the occasion is a summit meeting of the world's biggest Islamic and western nations who have agreed to meet for the first time in order to jointly address the problem of terrorism.
The Journalist
"Vantage Point" seems most alive in the opening sequence, which is narrated from inside a mobile broadcast center. Sigourney Weaver plays Rex Brooks, a seasoned pro who directs her reporter, cameramen, and in-studio technicians the way a quarterback calls the shots in a hurry-up offense. She snipes at her reporter (Zoe Saldana) for getting into political punditry, and wonders aloud when she sees a Secret Service agent at the U.S. President's side whom everyone thought still inactive after he had taken a bullet to protect the most powerful man in the free world, "Why didn't we know about this?" Weaver really nails this part, so much that you wish you could see more of her throughout the film. In one of the bonus features we're told that all those monitors in the broadcast center were really green screens, and that makes her reaction shots all the more amazing. When they watch the President recoil from two shots, then hear an explosion and she tries to calm her reporter down so she can report, it's powerful stuff. So is what happens moments later, when another explosion takes out the whole façade of the main building at the Plaza Major (which was really a set built in Mexico).
Then, at segment's end, the camera rewinds while we hear rewind sound effects, back to the same time when we joined Weaver. Only the perspective changes.
The Secret Service Veteran
Dennis Quaid plays the main man in this quasi-Cubist narrative. He's Thomas Barnes, a now-jittery veteran who sees assassins in every quick crowd movement and camera flash. Quaid also nails his part, conveying a mixture of fear and confidence, paranoia and common sense that makes it easy for us to see all the gray areas that are layered in this narrative. We watch him see flutters of curtains in the building across the way, hear him phone in his suspicions to an unresponsive command center, and watch his reactions after the President is shot. But he's unbelievably polite, whether demanding video from the broadcast control center or from an American tourist whom he saw filming everything on his camcorder, and for a guy who's taking medication to calm his nerves, that doesn't feel right at all.
The Tourist
Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker plays Howard Lewis, a recently separated man who's out to experience adventure, and ends up thinking he knows who killed the President in a chaotic setting. Half of his attentions are directed to trying to tell people what he saw, and the other half are aimed at trying to protect a little Spanish girl who bumped into him and dropped her ice cream as a result.
Then it's that dreaded rewind again. Once was fine. Twice was bearable. But come on. We get the point. It's going to be a multiple rewind telling of this story. Must we really go through the backwards tape every single time? It's one of two major annoyances in this film, the other being first-time screenwriter Barry Levy's preoccupation with that little girl. That whole tourist/little girl thread really could have been removed from the film without great loss. On the other hand, we're told, at some point, that a trusted Secret Service agent has gone "rogue," and there's never sufficient development to explain why. We watch two brothers involved on the fringe of these terrorists, and come to realize that one really might be a local cop who really might have been rushing the stage to help, rather than hurt the President. But in times of terror, any young man with a beard is suspect. More on the core of the plot, rather than the periphery, would have made this a stronger film.
The President
William Hurt plays President Ashton in convincing manner, though his role is exceptionally small. He's probably grateful for the rewind structure, or else he would have been on-camera for just minutes. But as Jason P. Vargo complained in his theatrical review, "not much makes sense, logic wise." Apparently the White House is chronically deficient in devising exit plans, because there's no clear course that's taken once tragedy strikes. Even small things are disturbing when it comes to logic. This scene is like the World Trade Center collapse, with people rushing everywhere, explosions, shots, and so on. Amid all this chaos a relatively calm and lucid Howard Lewis takes the little girl he rescued and hands her off to a police woman. "Look after her. I'll be back," he says. And the woman nods and accepts the girl. End of shot. I've run into more frantic and uncooperative cops at airports when there were no shots, explosions, and stampeding people to clog their attention spans. Then there's the funniest line in the film, albeit an unintentional one, which is also tied to logic (or the lack thereof). As Agent Barnes reaches the President, whose face is covered with blood, he asks, "Are you injured?"
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