Vantage Point

Jeri Jacquin, Movie Maven

Opening this Friday is an unusual who-done-it with twists in  “Vantage Point”.

This film is the story of an incident seen from eight different points of view. The events begin with Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), a returning Secret Service Agent who once saved the life President Ashton (William Hurt). Now in Spain for an important summit for the global war on terrorism, Barnes is back on assignment with his partner Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox).

In a flash the summit is turned upside down with shots being fired and an explosion that sends everything into chaos and disarray. Barnes and Taylor quickly move into action to save the president and find out how this could have happened.

Among all those in the crowd witnessing everything is Howard Lewis (Forrest Whitaker), a tourist with a video camera who captures more than he realizes with the lens. An undercover cop Javier (Edgar Ramirez) who mistakenly becomes the patsy, while the real terrorist Suarez (Said Taghmaoui) and Veronica (Ayeulet Zurer) have not even begun to reveal their real mission.

 Another point of view is a brother, Enrique (Eduardo Noriega) who will do anything to save his brother and a television news crew with Rex Brooks (Signorney Weaver) who does not realize their role in it all.

In the end, no matter what the point of view, it leads to a surprise ending.

FINAL WORD: It is an interesting twist seeing an event from eight different vantage points and how there is an interconnectedness between the characters. The ending holds a moment of surprise as it all comes together to make you say “hmmmm”.

Quaid did well as Agent Barnes although is character reminded me of a similar movie with Eastwood in “Line of Fire”. Ramirez did a great job with his character as I never understood his role until the last, I enjoyed that. Weaver was brief in her role but was nice to see.

The show was stolen by Whitaker and Fox. Whitaker with his boyish charm and presence that makes it easy to believe he is the character of Howard Lewis. With Fox it was a chance to see him away from being Jack, his character from the very successful television series “Lost” and show an unexpected side of himself.

However, it did get rather annoying seeing the same introduction eight times, sort of like “Ground Hog Day” but without the laughs.  The camera jumping around was a little rough on the eyes for me. With those two points in mind I did enjoy the ride.

TUBS OF POPCORN: I give “Vantage Point” three tubs out of five of popcorn. The tagline of the film is “8 people. 8 different points of view. 1 truth.” which is just the view to take with “Vantage Point”.