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The Reel World: Vantage Point |
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Monday, 25 February 2008 |
Taking on the touchy subject of global terrorism and America’s pretentious attempt to control it, comes Vantage Point. This film attempts to take a terrorist attack and presidential assassination and break it down repeatedly according to six different people’s point of view.
The film starts out from the point of view of a new station producer, Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver) barking orders to her camera men, her reporter (Zoe Saldana) and everyone in the news van with her.
There
are lots of not-so-subtle hints that the writers of the film feel that
the media is working hard to portray a bias, pro-American view of the
issues.
The setting is a global anti-terrorism summit in Spain and the President of the United States (William
Hurt) takes the stage to speak only to be shot down by an unknown gunman. Panic ensues among the
crowd and as the reporter tries to explain the unfolding events an explosion takes everyone inside the
summit down.
The film rewinds to begin at the same start point, but this time from the point of view of Thomas
Barnes (Dennis Quaid), a lead secret service agent returning for the first time since taking a bullet for
the president at an earlier time.
Barnes is obviously still a bit shaky and in his over precautious state, he is the first to notice that
something fishy is going on where the shooter is supposedly located. Despite his attempts to find the
shooter, we see the same events unfold with little different aspect than the first time.
We are introduced to Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) when Barnes accosts him for the video camera
Lewis has been filming the summit with. It is thanks to this footage that Barnes discovers there is a
bomb about to explode, but alas it is too late.
The film rewinds once again to the point of view of Lewis as he video tapes the summit in awe of the
moment. He runs into a stranger to whom he reveals that is a father and failed husband. It is never
really revealed why this is important to his character development or the plot.
Vantage Point rewinds three more times before finally expanding a plot past the point of the aftermath
of the explosion and we finally meet the people who are responsible for the terrorist events…all 50 of
them. While we learn what part each of them had to play in the repeatedly unfolding events, we never
learn why or how they initially got involved.
The film is fast paced and action packed. I must admit that I was kept on the edge of my seat
watching the events unfold the first time and was intrigued by each tidbit of information that was added
as a new vantage point was added.
However, in the end the plot comes to a screeching halt and the audience is left with questions of why
the terrorist attack was initiated in the first place and what was intended to happen.
It seemed as though the writers were edging their way towards a powerful political statement and it was
up in the air of whether or not it would be pro- or anti-American. There was no message though. The
film ended and it is questionable whether or not an audience member could even contrive a political
message of their own from the film.
Vantage Point was a great visual piece and was even intriguing in its story but fell short in the end and
wasted great acting potential with dialogue that could be written by a high school student.
If nothing else, Vantage Point is worth a watch to see the visual element but it isn’t quite worth a trip to
the theatre unless you just like leaving the theatre scratching your head.
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