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Title: Vantage Point
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“Vantage Point” is the latest film in a series of films where the story is juggled from several characters points of view. The term coined for these movies is the “jigsaw puzzle film,” which is an appropriate name regardless how you look at it. Some of these movies, like “Traffic” and “Crash,” have used this form of storytelling to great effect. In films like “Babel” and “Rendition”...eh, not so much. Then we have “Vantage Point,” which kind of gets it right, yet kind of gets it wrong on the same level. Now on a personal level I love reviewing jigsaw puzzle movies like this. Mainly because since there are so many characters in the movie, all I have to do is tell you the movie revolves around the President of the United States getting shot, and nothing more. I may not even have to explain that much since you’ve likely already seen the trailer.
But yes, the movie revolves around the President getting shot. Since this is a movie, we know that’s not the end of the story. Especially when the movie has to give us the same situation from eight different points of view. And this is where the movie ends up sounding better then it ends up being. I understand that scenes are supposed to overlap in these sorts of movies. I get it. We follow a character around, see something, then we follow another character around and sometimes see a previous scene from a different point of view. The problem is, while most movies do this is real time to avoid too much overlapping, “Vantage Point” actually rewinds the movie eight times before moving on with anything. In other words, the first ten minutes of the movie is re-watched eight times.
Say that enough times and you’ll start to get a headache. A couple of these scenes justify the retelling, but far too many of these scenes are almost identical to the previous scenes, which seems to defeat the purpose of the gimmick. Actually, a couple of the scenes actually have some of the same shots of the President getting shot, even though the characters are standing in completely different angles from the other characters, which doesn’t make sense from a directional point-of-view. Ah, but camera movement is the least of my problems. My main problems is that the movie gets boring midway through the film, and the story twists become very silly. The more silly the twists become, the more predictable the story turns out to be. Considering that most of the points-of-view cut away just as we’re about to find out something important, I used these moments to start making guesses about the ending.
And wouldn’t you know; I was right three out of five times. I even guessed the ultimate fate of Matthew Foxes character, just because in that episode of “Lost” he...well, maybe I’d better not go there (just in case). Thankfully, the movie saves itself from being a complete waste of time in the second half, where instead of rewinding the story, the story intertwines the characters for the climax (wise move). Though the ending was certainly better then the first half, the movie felt like a chore to enjoy. The acting is good, but the story is implausible to a high degree, and I could overlook this is the beginning wasn’t so boring. To prove my point on the story though, here’s an observation that I can bring to you even if you’ve just seen the trailer: Would the US government set up a Presidential speech in the center of a foreign hotel, with all those rooms a sniper can hide in, and very few exits? If this question bothers you, then that may be a clue on whether you want to see it or not.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -