Vantage Point

Vantage Point (2008)

Movie Review

The classic Japanese film Rashomon tells the tale of a murder from four very different perspectives, all of which contradict each other at various times. The movie makes the point that in any given situation, the absolute truth can be nigh impossible to ascertain because every person sees events in such a different way. Vantage Point claims to be doing something similar but seems to have gotten confused along the way and decided that, actually, everyone's perspective would be the same if they were just standing in the same spot. Whereas key plot points might be altered or out of sequence in Rashomon, with Vantage Point it’s more a matter of looking a different direction from someone else.

The movie centers around an apparent attempt on the President of the United States' life and proceeds to show the same twenty minutes or so from six different points of view. The first is a news producer, then we have a secret service agent, a local police officer, a tourist, the president himself, and finally the bad guys (who get conflated into one extended portion that wraps everything up). But rather than have any substantial differences in the way these different people see things, it’s all about what new pieces they can bring to the puzzle, and those pieces are doled out by the movie excruciatingly slowly. While a character may see something absolutely crucial to the plot, the audience isn’t shown what it is (just that person saying something to let us know it’s important, like “Oh my God!” or something clever like that) until later when the plot point is revealed in a different perspective. Vantage Point has nothing to say about the differences in the way people experience the world, but is, instead, basically a simple mystery to be pieced together. Unfortunately, the filmmakers don't play fair and allow the audience to piece the mystery together themselves except for one big twist that is revealed near the end and is also, sadly, ridiculously obvious almost from the very beginning.to be pieced together; one thatbasically a simple thpeople expereincefferent perspective. gs, it'd decided that, in fact, persp Great. So now we have a mystery that we’re not allowed to solve save for one small portion that is a giveaway all along. Any other problems?

Yeah, actually. See, by repeating the events six times the movie eventually gets really boring because we've seen most of this before. I suppose it could be more interesting to watch these things over and over if they were any good the first time, but the cookie-cutter characters don’t have a lot going for them. That’s kind of understandable since we essentially only have 20 minutes to get to know them all, but it doesn’t make it feel any better. The paper-thin plot groans under the weight of repeated viewing anyhow, but when the plight of a small girl gets laid on top of it, I couldn’t help but groan a little myself. On top of that, whatever species this movie is about, it sure isn't human beings. These guys take far more physical abuse than we ever could. Nearly all of the main characters are in close proximity to a large explosion, but it does little more than knock them down. One guyy oringvery beginning.s except for one big twist that is r takes a gut shot but that results in just a bit of wincing. Another guy gets hit by a car, twice, and it hardly breaks his stride. And finally one of them is in a car that gets sandwiched between a semi truck and a brick wall and he just crawls out and runs off. And yet, none of them are wearing the tell-tale glasses of a superhuman…

The movie finally wraps up with a big, long, drawn-out car chase that just gets tiring and is really just a collection of grimacing faces and fancy editing. Believe me, there are better car chases out there if that’s what you’re after. And finally, the go nowhere plot is conveniently wrapped up, the two-dimensional hero saves the day, the bland, unconvincing bad guys whose goal was, I think, everlasting war are defeated handily and the traitor (Oh, um, spoiler alert I guess. I mean, if you’ve never seen a movie ever, it might surprise you that there is a traitor involved.) is taken care of. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and goes off to watch something else.

Rated: PG-13

Suitable for kids?: No nudity or sex, a lot of people get shot but nothing particularly graphic, and some bad language but not a whole lot. Let’s say yes, but definitely no one under the age of 10 or anyone with a shred of taste.

Anything after the credits: Not a thing.

Rating: 2/5