"Vantage Point" movie review

This week we'll be taking a look at the number one film in America, Vantage Point (PG-13). Told from the perspective of five different viewpoints, the movie outlines an attempted assassination of the President of the USA while at a summit in Spain. The movie stars Dennis Quiad, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt.

Ryan: The post-Oscar blues have officially arrived. After rewarding the best of the previous year, we now enter the time of year when the new releases are extremely hit and miss (historically—mostly miss). There's no easy way to say it. Vantage Point is a complete mess. The premise of the movie had potential and the cast was strong enough to produce a quality film. Unfortunately the film is just too completely ridiculous to buy into.

Andy: That pretty much sums it up. The two people who must take responsibility for this muddled movie are director Pete Travis and rookie writer Barry Levy. Levy's script was an intriguing idea that seemed like it never really translated into good writing. Travis monumentally wasted the talent given to him for his silver screen debut.

Ryan: The movie boasts a respectable and recognizable cast. But I don't see any one of these stars putting their respected performances in this film at the top of their resumes. Granted it's mainly not their fault but it would have been relieving if one of them could have gave a performance that might have elevated the movie to the (at the very least) a level of mediocrity.

Andy: The cast is actually pretty amazing, at least on paper. Sigourney Weaver has three Oscar nominations to her credit, while both Whitaker and Hurt have won Oscars for best actor. Quaid is probably a B list leading man, but for an ensemble cast, you really couldn't ask for much more. It's not that these guys weren't trying, it' just that the movie is a little too ridiculous and a little too forced with its gimmicks and storytelling to really be a solid body of work.

Ryan: The first couple of segments of the movie aren't too bad. They set up a film that could be an entertaining action/political drama. Towards the end of the Forest Whitaker character's segment the movie starts to spiral out of control and keeps on descending and descending. Needless to say it never recovers. The film's (attempted) allure of presenting a scene with several different perspectives failed to engage me. In fact it was like watching a football game on TV when they incessantly show a replay to the point where it becomes exhausting. The movie runs for only ninety minutes but it feels a lot longer than that with all of the overlapping of scenes.

Andy: I will confess to being entertained for segments of the movie. The novelty of the idea was nice for a while, and the situations the film was presenting were sometimes thrilling enough to be adequately suspenseful. Ironically, the movie just didn't fit together well enough to be successful, so it ends up being both boring and awkward; a combination that is hard for a supposed political thriller to overcome.

Vantage Point takes a good idea and a talented cast and grinds it down to mediocrity. There are some good things about it, but not nearly enough to earn it much more than a D+.