Following an assassination attempt on the US President (William Hurt), eight witnesses - each with their own particular 'vantage point' - are employed to piece together the truth.
Dennis Quaid's Secret Service agent is one, while Matthew Fox, Sigourney Weaver, Edgar Ramirez and Forest Whitaker help fill out the other seven.
Anyone who has been near a cinema in the past six months would have caught the trailer for this tricky thriller. Are distributors Sony just supremely confident in their product, or panicking like mad they have a dud on their hands? We shall see.
They say:
Variety: "Can an implausible setpiece offer up fresh thrills and insights if replayed ad infinitum from different perspectives? Not according to Vantage Point."
Empire: "Some okay thrills with good performances and some smarts."
Rolling Stone: "You’ll hate yourself for being suckered in."
We say:
We all remember Dennis Quaid, right? Wide Jack Nicholson-esque grin, breakout roles in 80s hits Great Balls of Fire and Innerspace, once married to Meg Ryan, frequent battles with cocaine addiction - he is as ubiquitous as rain, just as frequent and just as likely to disappear again five minutes later.
While not as all round accomplished an actor as his brother Randy Quaid, Dennis has the looks and that makes him leading man material. Even here aged fifty three and jowly, he can still cut it alongside young upstart Matthew 'one expression and I'm done' Fox - and he has more hair to boot.
Actually, the 'Lost' star is barely involved until the finale, plus similarly aged Edgar Ramirez is far more captivating and deadly - particularly following his disappointingly limited turn in The Bourne Ultimatum. When Fox finally gets his big moment, true to form he puts in a conventional performance that plays second fiddle to the shaky cam, aural bombardment surrounding him.
And yet for such a complicated set up technically (time stamps, flashbacks, freeze frames, rewinds, replays), Vantage Point still feels generically Hollywood and conformist.
Adding a tedious 'whooshing' sound effect to the end of every other scene demonstrates a real lack of discrimination on the part of British born director (he still lives in East Dulwich) Pete Travis - he thinks everything is worthy of dramatic tension, even Dennis Quaid putting on a white shirt. Ooh, for a second there we thought he might opt for the blue one!
Nevertheless this is satisfying Friday night popcorn fare - slick and noisy and utterly disposable. It has a nice retro feel too, recalling high quality formulaic gloss prevalent in the early 1990s, like The Fugitive and In the Line of Fire, though thankfully nothing like 2006s similarly Secret Service themed, but monumentally dreadful The Sentinel.
What limits Vantage Point is its own major selling point: the constant replaying of the same sequence - the attempted assassination and its immediate aftermath - from eight different perspectives (or five or seven, depending on who you ask).
Though not dull, this narrative device remains too illogically plotted to demand our full attention after, say, the third or fourth rerun.
The action is fine, but by this point you'll be past caring who was behind the hit. Was it this guy? Or her?! Or him?! Who cares, just crash another car and be done with it.
As a final aside, the mid point twist involving William Hurt's president and some slight of hand to rival David Copperfield for sheer preposterousness almost makes the film unravel quicker than a cheap suit. Then you realise everything in Vantage Point is designed to be preposterous to the max - you settle back and really rather enjoy yourself.
Extras:
Vantage Point belongs at home. It's here most of all, in the comfort of your own lounge with a tinny on the go that you'll appreciate just how stupidly entertaining the movie is.
Extras include featurettes, a 'GPS tracker' so you can follow where each of the characters are along the bottom of your TV screen, trailers and a dry as a bone commentary from local boy director Pete Travis.
The featurettes are short, but above average - the standout being a peek at how the pawns in Barry Levy's technically efficient screenplay were brought to life. Plus something called 'Surveillance Tapes' that paradoxically shows Travis has a sense of humour and yet isn't remotely funny. The GPS gadget is a diversion and fun for showing off to your friends. It has the longevity of a cream cake though.
Sound and picture definition on Blu-ray are both typically spectacular and worth shelling out for alone - that the film is OK too comes as a bonus.
RELEASED
4th Aug '08
CAST
Dennis Quaid
Forest Whitaker
Sigourney Weaver
William Hurt
Matthew Fox
DIRECTOR
Pete Travis
TIME
90 mins
POSTED...
Mon 10 Mar at 8:58am
