Forest Whitaker Movie:

		List Price: $38.96		Label: Sony Pictures Salesrank: 10194 Released: July 1, 2008
		Our Price: $9.73
		Used Price: $7.22
		MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
During an historic counter-terrorism summit in Spain, the President of the United States is struck down by an assassin's bullet. Eight strangers have a perfect view of the kill, but what did they really see? As the minutes leading up to the fatal shot are replayed through the eyes of each eyewitness, the reality of the assassination takes shape. But just when you think you know the answer, the shattering final truth is revealed. Vantage Point is a mind bending political action-thriller starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Academy Award® Winner Forest Whitaker (Best Actor 2006, The Last King of Scotland), with Sigourney Weaver and Academy Award® winner William Hurt (Best Actor 1985, Kiss of the Spider Woman).

Description of Vantage Point (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]:
Vantage Point, which aspires to be a cunningly twisted thriller, comes equipped with plenty of hurtling action, handheld camerawork, what-was-that? editing, and a plot that has multiple, contradictory agendas writhing like a nest of snakes. It's all set a-boil within a few blocks of a town square in Spain where a U.S. President is targeted for assassination. Although the movie lasts 90 minutes, the events it depicts are mostly over with in a quarter-hour or so--but seen, rewound, and reseen from half a dozen different (you guessed it) vantage points. The first line in the credits reads "Original Film," apparently the name of the production company. "Gimmick Movie" would be more accurate; the opening reel, effectively jolting, affords an initial overview of the events through the eyes, lenses, monitors, and dueling sensibilities of a TV news producer (Sigourney Weaver), her activist-minded reporter (Zoe Saldana) and crew. Everybody’s in Salamanca (actually, Mexico City) for the start of an international conference to reaffirm Arab-Western commitment to the fight against terrorism. Terrorism, of course, sees this as an ideal moment to break out. As gunshots and explosions reduce everything to chaos, the clock is reset to zero and we proceed to revisit the scene as experienced by several Secret Service agents (namely Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox), an American tourist with camcorder (Forest Whitaker), sundry locals--including three who may be caught up in a love triangle or a conspiracy or both--and even the President himself (William Hurt).

For a while, this is mildly diverting: that guy, or that gesture, so sinister when glimpsed across the plaza in one run-through, now appears harmless in close-up--or vice versa. But there's no real ambiguity (so stop with the careless comparisons to Kurosawa's Rashomon)--this is a shell game in which the peas aren't worth tracking. Despite decent actors, the characters might as well be holograms (although poor Forest Whitaker is saddled with "motivation" of surpassing sappiness), and the casting telegraphs several twists: one redoubtable good guy practically gives a wink-wink, nudge-nudge that he's really bad, etc. The movie declines to specify which nutjob philosophy the terrorists espouse, and their numbers are multi-ethnic. There's also a laborious suggestion that they have bloodthirsty, reactionary counterparts among the President's inner circle, which perhaps qualifies as redeeming socio-political comment and prompts a meaningless declaration of deep meaning from the Prez. The whole megilleh finally comes down to an extended car chase through impassably claustrophobic streets that would mark a lurch into unintentional self-parody--if only that point hadn't been passed a couple of rewinds earlier. --Richard T. Jameson

Stills from Vantage Point (click for larger image)

Vantage Point (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Dreadful
2009-11-05 - I felt as though I were passing through a torture chamber, not once, but eight times.
The whole movie is based on chaos. If all the spectacles were stripped from this movie, it
would not have any substance. Driving through the most unattractive areas of Phoenix would
have been better than watching this movie. The JFK assassination, on which this movie was based,
was an interesting documentary, because it allows the viewer to determine the facts from various
evidence. The writer could not even do this successfully. I watch movies to gain a wonderful feeling
at the end, to see some sort of challenge, or achievement, or heroics. This movie had none of those
simple ideas. Why pay for chaos when you can buy a newspaper.

Requires a huge leap of faith
2009-10-24 - This movie started out pretty interesting, but it degenerates into utter nonsense. I like to suspend logic and enjoy a movie, but when it gets to the silly level, I lose interest. There are a few things here that just kill this movie.

1. The movie portrays the Secret Service as a bunch of poorly trained buffoons. I know for a fact that this is nonsense. These guys are highly trained specialists. A lot of them are ex-military. There is no way that one guy could take out over a dozen of them like portrayed in the film. No way.
2. The worlds dumbest kid stops dead in front of a speeding ambulance and the terrorist driver swerves out of the way to avoid killing her. Since when do terrorists worry about killing kids?
3. One of the terrorists has a cell phone with technology from the 31st century. He can detonate bombs, activate machine guns, and shave in the morning with this thing. The only thing missing from it was a transporter from Star Trek.
4. If kidnapping the President of the United States was that easy, G.W. Bush would have been taken out 6 years ago. Utter nonsense.
5. The longest car chase since Gone in 60 Seconds, was just a boring waste of time.

I just could not get past these plot failures enough to enjoy the movie. To me, it was about as realistic as Pirates of the Carribean.


100 GREATEST MOVIES YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN BY HARD TO FIND MUSIC AND MOVIES
2009-10-09 - this movie made my 100 greatest movies you have never seen list as posted on [...]. great acting, great action, great story. so do you need more?

Good!! but way too much like "Snake Eyes"
2009-09-29 - This 2008 film is basically a repeat of the 1998 Nicolas Cage film "Snake Eyes", does that mean its bad, No, but the same movie, only the names & circumstances have been changed to protect the guilty Hollywood filmakers, In this we have a Presidential meeting in what appears to be Spain where the U.S. President is meeting with other world leaders at a summit, & is assasinated or is he, what we get is onlookers & their points of view of what they saw, & as the film progresses we realize that everything is not what it seems, this is where the films copies "Snake Eyes" examples are below:

In this we have Dennis Quaid as a Secret Service agent who witnesses the shooting & tries to piece together everything that has happened, much like Cage's cop does in "Snake Eyes" after a Senator is shot at a boxing match

We have a rogue Secret Service agent(Matthew Fox), just as Gary Sinise was a rogue cop in "Snake Eyes" that may or may not be involved

We have an unwilling, but determined witness(Forest Whittaker) who himself tries to put the pieces together, just Carla Gugino's character does in Cage's film

We have members of the President's staff with their own agendas as did the boxing promoters did in Cage's film

& like in Cage's film we have a mysterious man & woman who are involved but yet it never really becomes clear as to why they are involved or who they really work for

All in all this one is good even though it does mirror Cage's "Snake Eyes", it has one cool chase scene in it that is intense, I like both films, I always like a film that will show different events going on at the same time, where you see characters doing things that will eventually bring things together, "Star Trek" did this quite well in many of their episodes, as did "Back To The Future II", & especially the hit show "Lost" which really shows different events going on at the same time as events you have already seen, so if you like different perspectives, all the ones mentioned here are fun to watch.

There is no point...
2009-09-22 - An incredibly talented and international cast is not fully utilized in this repetitive and at times predictable film, as it rehashes the events leading up to a presidential assassination attempt at a summit in Spain from several differing points of view. Seven or eight different points of view to be exact, each time the film literally rewinds to set up the next vantage point. After about three points of view, I was bored out of my mind and grinding my teeth until it ended. The addition of hand held camera footage was supposed to introduce an element of chaos - I just found it really annoying. Add in some cheesy over-the-top obligatory chase scenes and a baddie that was pulled out of left field, and you have a 90 minute movie that just could not end soon enough.

There are such better offerings out there with similar themes such as the excellent 1970's political assassination film The Parallax View featuring Warren Betty, and the more recent The Sentinel (Widescreen Edition) featuring Michael Douglas and Keifer Sutherland. This movie just pales in comparison. Keep your hand on the remote - you won't miss anything.