- Release Date: 22 February 2008
- Runtime: 90 mins
- Vantage Point on IMDB
- 2 Cheers(out of 5):
When a catastrophic event occurs, who’s point of view is it told from? Which one is the most objective? What if you could tell the story from the vantage point of 7 different people? Vantage Point aims to retell an attempted kidnapping of the President of The United States from all points of view.
Thomas Barnes(Quaid) is a veteran Secret Service agent. Having taken a bullet for The President six months earlier, he is brought out of medical leave to protect The President on a diplomatic mission to Spain. Meeting with other world leaders, President Ashton(Hurt) is present at the World Summit on the War on Terror when an assassination attempt takes place. All is not as simple as it may appear on the surface. Barnes must unravel the truth and uncover the plot to kill the president before it is too late.
Execution is everything in film making. The idea of telling a story from differing views of characters in the story is a very interesting one; one that could be very entertaining. To put it bluntly, Vantage Point had poor execution. The movie is shot as the retelling of a story that is only 25 minutes long. The same story is told over and over (a total of 6 times) to the detriment of the story. Honestly, I was getting sick of the format after about the 3rd run through.
There were some hilariously funny aspects to the film though. The scene after the President has been shot, it is revealed that the man who was shot was actually a body double. The real President Ashton is in a hotel room with his senior staff, all of whom are pressuring him to bomb the training camp of the terrorists suspected of planning the assassination. In a moment of brilliant comedy and social commentary, President Ashton turns to his advisor and says (paraphrased) ‘There has just been an assassination attempt on my life. We can’t give in to what the terrorists are expecting; they’re expecting us to overreact. We have the sympathy of the world on our side, let’s not squander that.’ Obviously, this was a jab at the current administration, whose first line of offense consists of overreacting.
In the end, this movie is a poor excuse for a film. The want to make a good movie is there, the whole thing just lacks substance. The film Bobby addresses a similar framework (and story) with much more success. Save yourself the time and catch the last half hour of the film. That’s when the story is actually told.