VANTAGE POINT Columbia Pictures
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: B+
Directed by: Pete Travis
Written By: Barry Levy
Cast: William Hurt, Dennis Quaid, Sigourney Weaver, Forest Whitaker
Screened at: NYC, 2/19/08
Opens: February 22, 2008 Doris Lessing, the 88-year-old British novelist who won the Nobel prize last year, stated ominously that if Obama won the presidency, he would be assassinated. The assumption here is that killing our nation’s chief executive is not difficult. After all, four out of forty-three Presidents were indeed murdered, while several others were seriously injured during our nation’s history. If one locks into the framework of Pete Travis’s movie “Vantage Point,” one would have to agree: despite the presence of thirty-five secret service agents guarding the President before and during a speech he makes in a public square in Salamanca, Spain, and even with a clever ruse designed by the President’s guards to foil any villainous plot, gunning down the man with the prospect of getting away with murder is not all that difficult. In fact, even kidnapping our nation’s leader can be pulled off—something that, thank goodness, has never succeeded in this country. Pete Travis, whose resume includes directing several TV episodes including “Omagh”—about the aftermath of a real IRA bombing that killed 29 people in Omagh, Ireland--and Barry Levy in his debut as a film screenwriter, fill the screen in two distinct styles. The major segment of the movie exploits the “Rashomon” theme and will be preferred by those in the audience who value intellectual pleasures over the visceral. However, since this is a big-budget Columbia production and not one by its artistic subsidiary, Sony Pictures Classics, the final portion delivers all the tension that an action-loving audience could want, with its car chases, shootouts, and abounding terrorist-sponsored mayhem. The initial segment, which we might call the arty part, involves the preparation of our Commander in Chief to deliver a speech at an anti-terrorist summit in Salamanca, Spain, right in the heart of the town in the Plaza Mayor. The square is packed with people waving Spanish flags, a considerable number bearing anti-U.S. signs—not a place for the Secret Service to be goofing off. As we watch the entrance of the Prez and see him ascend the platform at high noon, as we watch members (ironically) of a terror group plot their well-planned activities and carry them out to the horror and fear of the large crowd, cinematographer Amir Mokri puts the film on rapid reverse before moving forward again. But here’s the kicker: we see the action from the vantage point, of eight different locations within the Plaza Mayor, each time noting how everything looks from a different part of the square. For example, in one scene, a woman, Angie (Zoe Saldana), appears to be embracing a man when in fact (we find out in another take) she is delivering on part of the plan to assassinate the President. In another, one Suarez (Said Taghmaoui) chats in English with a Howard Lewis (Forest Whitakers), who is videotaping the ceremony during his first trip to Europe. But is this just a friendly conversation, or is Suarez up to something? We find out from other segments of the film. The ceremony centering on President Ashton (William Hurt) is televised under the direction of Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver), who observes that Ashton is being protected by agents such as Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), a man who took a bullet the year prior in thwarting an assassination, and his partner, Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox), some agents wondering whether the once-injured man is “up to” the job this time around. As each of the successive rewinds and forwards, we in the audience are given more clues. Is that bellhop just a bellhop? What’s with the friendly Spaniard chatting with the American? Is there anyone lurking behind the moving curtains on a second-floor window facing the square? What plan has been conjured up by the Secret Service to give the President extra protection? In each case, we do not get the answers the first time around, but only in the story told from different vantage points. The arty crowd in the theater seats would probably wish that the film ended on a question mark, with limited action, an intellectual treat or, if you will, a detective story to be discussed later over a latte at Starbucks. But this being a razzle-dazzle high-budget job, director Travis throws in quite a bit of action, most of it stuff we’ve seen before--car chases, massive killing of guards and hotel employees, and the inevitable car chase with all the obligatory smash-ups. As for me, I enjoyed both basic parts of the drama, a marriage (if not necessarily made in heaven) between the intellectual and the emotional. There were a few unintentional laughs: that happens so often in action movies that you’d think it’s part of a director’s grab-bag of options. There was one intentional joke, that one uttered by William Hurt in the role of President Ashton. Here’s a movie with the principal actors, particularly Said Taghmaoui as Suarez and Dennis Quaid as the secret service agent, doing a bang-up job, the crowd of extras convincing as they wave the flag of their nation, the editing first-rate. “Vantage Point” was filmed mostly in the southern part of Mexico City, where the crew built a “Plaza Mayor” out of an abandoned mall, while some of the scenes take place actually in Salamanca—the latter city considered impractical for filming because of the nature of some action scenes. It’s the sort of film that has you come into the theater with your brain fully loaded, and allows you to check your cerebrum at the box office for the final section. “Vantage Point” is energetic, with quite enough momentum to keep audience attention throughout. Rated PG-13. 90 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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