Movie Review: Vantage Point

Vantage Point (2008) 

Directed by Pete Travis 

Written by Barry L. Levy 

Starring Dennis Quaid, Sigourney Weaver, Forest Whitaker, Edgar Ramirez, William Hurt

Release Date February 22nd, 2008

Published February 21st, 2008 

Dennis Quaid is one of those fatherly actors who's craggy visage and heroes stare makes you root for him unconsciously. Like Harrison Ford, Quaid's often been called Ford light by this writer, Quaid looks old enough to be a more handsome version of your dad. In that 'my dad could beat up your dad' contest of childrens egos, Dennis Quaid is who you wish were on your side. Thus Quaid is perfect for the kind of earnest, trustworthy, tough guy, good guy roles that he played in The Day After Tomorrow and that he plays in the new actioner Vantage Point.

As secret service agent Thomas Barnes, Quaid embodies the flawed hero of the American character. Noble, loyal, self sacrificing but not above fear or failing. My rhetoric is lofty but I promise, justified. Even in a movie as terrifically bad as Vantage Point Quaid is worthy of such grandiose musings.

Directed by English television veteran Pete Travis, Vantage Point plays out the same terrorist attack on an American President (William Hurt) from 8 different perspectives. First it's the media where Sigourney Weaver, as a producer for the Global News Network, has several cameras and endless angles to cover all the while dealing with a diva reporter (Zoe Saldana) with an agenda beyond just covering a speech by the President on terrorism. The speech, taking place at an ancient villa square in Spain, is soon rocked by the shooting of the President and then several explosions, all caught on camera, all with different pieces of the puzzle.

Next we rewind to get the 'Vantage Point' of secret service agent Thomas Barnes. Returning to active duty, at the behest of his partner Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox), several months after getting shot protecting the President. Suffering from post traumatic stress, there are fair questions as to whether he can handle active duty again. Once the shooting begins and the plot unfolds it quickly falls to Barnes to put the pieces together and tie the whole of this goofball plot together in some kind of believable or modestly plausible fashion.

Next we see events from the miscast perspective of Forrest Whitaker as an American tourist lashed to a handheld videocamera that captures important evidence of the shooter and the subsequent bombing. Whitaker is a fine actor who gives his all but a younger actor, with less integrity and more grit would have fit the role better. We need to believe that this guy would not put down his camera for anything and while Whitaker plays the noble hero seeking justice, the truer perspective is the modern fame seeker who see's dollar signs with his video of the President being shot is more believable and holds more dramatic possibilities. Consider, the venal anti-hero becomes noble hero is far more dramatically satisfying than the heroic guy becomes more heroic. But there I go, reviewing the movie that Vantage Point is not.

We then get the perspectives of the president himself, a Spanish police officer (Edgar Ramirez) wrongly accused in the wake of the shooting and the terrorists themselves whose goofball plot has every Bond villain cliché one can imagine wrapped in one goofball twist after another. Of course, that isn't the biggest problem for Vantage Point. Rather, the films biggest struggle is with structure. The film rewinds over the same terrorist attack 8 times all the while trying to conceal and reveal little tidbits of plot that maybe they plan to reveal later in the film or maybe they don't. By the 4th or 5th rewind you are not likely to care. Worn out by the constant ripping back and forth in the space time continuum of this event a headache is a far more likely result than intrigue or interest.

And yet, even as you are rubbing your eyes and ruing the thought of another flashback, when Dennis Quaid returns to center stage late in the third act you are momentarily drawn back in. Dominating a pretty terrific car chase through the narrow, brick and mortar streets of old town Spain, Quaid ever so briefly distracts from the flashbacks and goofball twists to deliver a rousing action sequence that in any other film could have been a game changer, a scene so cool it makes the movie better. Nothing, unfortunately, not a car chase or even the resurrection of Steve McQueen driving Bullitt directly over one of the terrorists, could save the goofball mess that is Vantage Point.