Review of Vantage Point (2008) by Kevin L — 28 Dec 2011

This thriller is short and suspenseful but sins by relying a little too much with the rewinding back to 11:59:56. Vantage Point takes place in Madrid. The president of the United States (played by William Hurt) is going to give a speech in a summit but it is interrupted by an attempt on his life followed by several explosions.

The film gives us five different points of views and once we see one point of view we rewind back to the beginning and see it from another point of view. We have 5 different vantage points. It begins with the news producer (Sigourney Weaver), then we see it through the bodyguard (Dennis Quaid), an American tourist with a handheld camera (Forrest Whitaker), the president, and finally through one of the terrorists who is forced to act.

Once we see the 5 different views and how our perspective changes each time the ending finally goes linear. I have to admit this thriller has you guessing what is going on, but after a while the rewinding technique gets tiresome.

I still enjoyed the film up to that moment. The buildup for the ending is what did not convince me. The tension and the buildup grow and then at the end everything is resolved too fast and in a very unlikely fashion (the ambulance swerving for the little girl just did not make any sense).

I was entertained up to the last scene but was a little disapointed with the ending.