‘Vantage Point’ fails, no matter where you sit

Vantage Point aims to add a little Rashomon to the standard political thriller template. It misses the mark badly, resulting in a clunky, unnecessarily complicated thriller that never earns the gimmick of endless repetition it forces the audience to sit through.

The story takes place in Spain, where the U.S. president (William Hurt) has organized a worldwide summit on combating terrorism. “GNN” has an army in place to televise the momentous occasion; the Secret Service is on full alert due to substantial threats. Meanwhile, agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) is returning to the job after taking a bullet for the president during an assassination attempt. Shaky and medicated, Barnes is nonetheless assigned to cover the POTUS during the summit’s opening ceremony—and then shots ring out, bombs explode, and the film rewinds right before our eyes to 30 minutes before, when we’re taken through the assassination again (and again and again) with a different character.

These characters run the gamut from local police to camcorder-wielding tourists to the assassins themselves, with each new thread revealing more and more of the plot. But as the film lumbers along the gimmick quickly becomes tiresome. This sort of conceit requires a certain amount of finesse to pull off successfully, but Vantage Point has all the subtlety of a dump truck, with director Pete Travis using the same footage over and over to rapidly diminishing effect. (The film’s big pyrotechnic bang is especially over-used, shown to us from the exact same angles each time it detonates.) And while the assassination plot is well thought out, its unraveling is so obvious and simple-headed that it renders the entire set-up laughable. Not even a semi-twist of a climax can rescue this sliced-’n’-diced schlock.

VANTAGE POINT DIR. PETE TRAVIS | RATED PG-13 | OPENS FRI

Tags: Film, rashomon, thriller, vantage point