See the Crime from All Different Vantage Points: A Review of the Film VANTAGE POINT

The new political action thriller VANTAGE POINT is an interesting film that hasn't been seen in quite some time on the big screen so its concept seems fresh and new. The film tells the story of an assassination attempt on the United States President Ashton (William Hurt) who is in a foreign country on a mission of god will. The film unfolds through the perspective of eight individuals who each witnessed the events surrounding the assassination but none of which have all the details or all the angels.

At the forefront of the investigation is Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), a Secret Service Agent who took a bullet for the President earlier and hasn't fully recovered yet putting him in the unique position of having to repeat himself. Also at the forefront of the story is an American tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) who is on vacation trying to escape his complicated family life at home and whom finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy when he realizes that he caught several details of the assassination on his camcorder. The story also involves a local cop, a news organization (lead by Sigourney Weaver), and several other people including a little girl at the rally just to see the President.

Although there are several different stories that help guide the main one, which is discovering the conspiracy around the assassination attempt, most of the film is told through the perspective of Barnes and Lewis while everyone else is left as just devices to push the story forward. Writer Barry Levy crafts a credible and tense story that moves at a brisk pace and never slows down and while the main two characters are fully capable the supporting characters are mostly dull and uninteresting. Weaver's segment sets up the film but soon drops off having very little to do by the midpoint before being discarded completely. Matthew Fox, who plays Barnes' partner Kent Taylor is window dressing for an even deeper conspiracy that goes absolutely no where. The film has such a rich cast it's a shame they aren't given more to work with.