Vantage Point (Single-Disc Edition)

Misdirection Insurrection (2008-08-18) Rating: 3/5
Vantage Point was fun to watch. I thought that the way Director Pete Travis told the story was cool.

The first hour of the movie is basically a loop of the same action, but from various different perspectives, or Vantage Points, of several key players that witness a diabolical scheme to assassinate The President of the United States.

You may know already that one of my biggest pet peeves is spoilers. I hate spoilers. And I'm not about to write one out here so don't worry. But if you've ever seen the trailer for Vantage Point and then watch the movie, you'll be like, "why the heck did they give away that critical twist?" In fact, the trailer for this movie goes so far as to (deliberately) misdirect you into preconceiving who the bad guys are.

But why??? Did the director or producers think that their movie would be too obvious and predictable without the misdirection? I don't think it would have been. On the contrary, the misdirection made Vantage Point seem like it would be another one of the many government conspiracy theory movies. But it's not. And I think that the marketing of this movie contributed to its lackluster box office performance.

Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox are great. Forest Whitaker's character is completely unbelievable...as in, it's hard to swallow a single action that Whitaker's character makes. William Hurt is The President, but seemed like he was in an Altered State.

All in all, I'd recommend catching this, but if you've got to choose, whatever your other choice is might top Vantage Point...from this perspective.


Coign of Vantage (2008-08-17) Rating: 4/5
Fete of Death
I rather liked the thriller "Vantage Point." The repetition of the movie's story from the different points of view of the main characters affords the movie a nightmarish quality. It's like you have to keep reliving a nightmare over and over making it that much more hellish, the tension mounting with each reliving. You feel trapped with no escape. You know what's going to happen and there's nothing you can do about it. The strands of the plot come together plausibly when the ambulance careens toward the little girl on the street, and in the ensuing violence and car crashes the story is resolved satisfactorily.
Highly contrived, inconsistent, uninvolving (2008-08-16) Rating: 2/5
What one expects from such a movie is that some events are initially misinterpreted and that others assume increasing significance. However, here the inconsistencies, illogic and absurdities pile up at an annoying pace (see other reviews for examples). This prevented me from having any investment in the story.

The underlying sequence of events is not that substantial (in addition to painfully contrived). Consequently, the different vantage points have a disproportionate amount of repetition relative to the new information that is layered on. My reaction at the end was "Is that all there was?"
Excellant (2008-08-12) Rating: 5/5
I rented this movie while on vacation and have ordered it to have at home. I will watch it with anyone that will watch it with me. I couldn't keep my eyes off it. You, actually can't take your eyes off or you might miss something. Very action filled and a most enjoyable movie.
Good movie, keeps your attention, but..... (2008-08-11) Rating: 4/5
I felt that this movie kept my attention, and I liked the plot twists. After viewing, I started to think about Keifer Sutherlund and how he would be in this role. This it hit me...with Keifer in this movie, they could have just called it 24:The Movie.