FilmEdge.net reviews VANTAGE POINT

“Don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see” goes the old chestnut.  Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable; what we believe we see is colored by our experience and our expectations.  Can we trust our own eyes?  VANTAGE POINT presents us with 23 minutes of an international summit on terrorism in Salamanca, Spain, from eight different points of view.  Inspired by the 1950 Academy Award-winning film RASHOMON, VANTAGE POINT attempts to demonstrate that what we see happen is not always what is truly happening.  The story begins with the arrival of United States President Ashton (William Hurt) and ends with chaos in a plaza packed with spectators, Secret Service agents and local law enforcement officials.   Each retelling hands us a few more details that become another piece of a complicated and intriguing puzzle.  We learn that the National Security Agency has uncovered a terrorist cell’s plan to assassinate the President during the ceremonial opening of the summit.  The NSA substitutes a double for the President during the ceremony, and recommends a missile strike on a Moroccan village with tenuous ties to the terrorist cell.  Tom Baker (Dennis Quaid) is the Secret Service agent who must protect the President and foil the terrorists. Director Pete Travis begins the film with what the viewer assumes should be the most accurate view:  expertly filmed and directed television journalism under the calm, firm hand of veteran news producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver).  Almost immediately, the audience realizes that her news story is colored by bias from the network and the newscaster on the scene.  Travis plants the seeds of doubt and skepticism early on, and they flourish as the film progresses.  We see the same 23 minutes through the eyes of Baker and Kent Taylor, the Secret Service agents protecting the president; an undercover officer in the Spanish police force; a friendly American tourist, a mercenary, President Ashton, and a terrorist mastermind.

Tom Baker is the hero of this story.  He is a Secret Service agent back on the job for his first assignment after taking a bullet during an assassination attempt on the President some months earlier.  Wrestling with self-doubt about his abilities, Baker worries that his personal fears will compromise his effectiveness in the field.  His partner, Kent Taylor, is pleased with Baker’s return to service, happily offering reassurance.  It’s the typical pairing we’ve seen in so many buddy-cop films before.  In fact, we’ve seen all of these characters before:  the powerful take-no-guff television producer, the regal and imposing President who must do what he feels is right despite the protestations of his closest advisors, the good cop who will compromise his ethics for love, the Secret Service agent who must use all of his training and experience to save the day.  Although the movie promises that all is not what it seems at first glance, it is. VANTAGE POINT is a formulaic thriller that fails to thrill.

The actors’ performances are uninspiring, save for Forrest Whitaker as sweet-natured tourist Howard Lewis, who becomes an unlikely chronicler of the disastrous events.  William Hurt’s portrayal of President Ashton bounces from the aloof to the melodramatic.  Matthew Fox, as agent Kent Baker, seems incapable of subtlety or nuance.  Travis pulls out every cliché in the book: stereotypical characters do expected things and it’s off to a car chase-ending.  The plot twists that should drive a suspense film are predictable.  Making eight stories mesh seamlessly is a huge directorial undertaking, and Travis is not up to the task.  His premise is intriguing, but there are so many plot holes and loose ends that the film feels unfinished.  Beyond that, the continuity errors, editing problems and second-rate CGI effects make some sequences almost comical.  Cars crash and continue on, with no visible body damage.  Shadows on CGI-generated items are at odds with actual scenery. Crowds appear and disappear.  Every film asks the audience to suspend reality for a couple of hours and enter the director’s story.  This film doesn’t ask for belief in the implausible, but in the impossible.

What VANTAGE POINT does well is product placement for high-end electronics.  Apple’s iPhone has a major role, as does a Sony video camera.  The plot of VANTAGE POINT depends on high-tech hijinks and plenty of battery power.  The hardware of the terrorist plot is intricate and convoluted, and would require a team of electronics experts we expect in science-fiction, not political intrigue.  And speaking of politics, director Travis inserts some heavy-handed editorializing into the film that is unnecessary and distracting.