"Vantage Point" (2008) - Movie Review

If you think “Death of a President” is too much to handle for showing the fictional assassination of George W. Bush, you got to think a lot about viewing the assassination of the fictional character, President Ashton (William Hurt) of the United States multiple times. Of course there is a vast difference in the seriousness and the tone both the movie take but it does get too much after four times. Now when you are mentioning the great classic movie “Rashomon” as a reference to the style, you better be careful in living up to it in your own way. And I did not go with the intention of a classic but a fun entertaining action flick with an approach taken from one of the best movie classics. I was with it for I guess some where around third or fourth part (I do not recall how many “views” it was shown) and then…you get it.

The view as they say is not the eye of the characters. It is the particular scene wherein the character takes the center stage and we get some more pieces of information to whatever the suspense they are building up. The trailer supposedly says that there is more than one suspense unraveling and they do show one or two in the rush up of it which would have made it more interesting to be seen in the film. The first piece from the “GNN” news network center is the best of all. It is chaotic and tears the wounds of exploitative journalism by the producer Rex (Sigourney Weaver). Everything is quick and keeps us wide awake for the next part. The plot is that in a big huge summit in a city located in Spain, the President is assassinated and as different parts of views are shown, we get to know the truth or whatever it is because after a point we do not really care.

It sure sky rockets the pace and does entertain a promising end. I was never bored until the ridiculous car chase which goes on forever and the repetitive scenes of the assassination and the succeeding blasts. Now the biggest cheating is that they do not reveal everything to us. In the episode of the secret service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), he sees the video of the tourist Howard (Forest Whitaker) and exclaims “Oh! My God” and the video we get to see it later but it is not suspense when you do something like that. Similarly the real suspense they hide about is also seen by Barnes but we never get to see it until the end. This is not a fair game. In “The Prestige” which also does not reveal certain details to the mind blowing suspense, we know the ruthless characters of these magicians and it tells a lot about the actions. Here it is used only to trump us and give the director the final laugh in succeeding the actual plot suspense.

Conflicting thoughts emerged as I was in the middle of the film. I was definitely been kept upon interested on the outlooks but the more it rose, the more I was expecting a big convincing climax. When you boast so much of stand in giving a style of a fast entertainment, there should not be a character placed for fixing the plot.

It is a heavy disgrace to compare “Rashomon” to this but there needs to be a proper explanation to address the points made for it. In “Rashomon” all the characters tell a story involving them in completely different ways and in each they will be implicating themselves. Here it is more of the director’s multiple views following one or more characters in light for that period of time. The style I need to accept works half way and then becomes annoying. The Japanese film had a deeper concept for its usage of such a style and still is entertaining. I would not accept the tag/genre saying it is an action film which should need much dissection since they publicize it way too much.

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Amorros Perros” should be named as the origin for this film than “Rashomon” and it still is a disgrace to that film too. I would have had the film let go if not for the ridiculous car chase and the much talked multiple views. “Vantage Point” directed by Pete Travis should have trusted the first half of the material and worked on it rather than relying on a stunt which baffled and confused.