Essentially Vantage Point is a movie about an assassination attempt on the President of the US. The plot itself isn't anything unique, what is unique is how the story is told. The first half of the movie uses a fascinating story telling device in that it keeps showing the audience the same 23 minutes of real time from different people's perspectives, or vantage points. This was done by letting us watch to a certain stage and then actually rewinding and starting again at the same point from another characters view.
This whole rewinding and telling different pieces of the same story was working for me, I was actually into it at about the half way point. Suddenly though Vantage Point turned into an action movie and began to tell the story in a more linear way going back to little details here and there but trying to follow a dozen or more characters at once. Some of these characters had not had their vantage point shown yet. It fell apart for me a bit in this second half with car chases and gun fights, really the whole personality of the movie changed.
This movie had potential, it was a unique idea and I think the story could have been told with the rewind method right to the finish, letting the audience figure things out as each character's viewpoint reveals one more part to the mystery. What was shaping up to be an interesting mystery turned into an adequate action movie and left me a little disappointed.
I still put Vantage Point on my 'Watch It' list and give it a value of $6. Wait for the rental though.
7 comments:
Nice recap.
I liked VP too. Will it be in my end of year best? Ha! Entertaining enough, Quaid got a meaty role and worked every minute of it.
that's a very helpful review. i am intrigued by the idea of the different perspectives but if it trails off into the usual gunfight ending then i will consider myself warned and won't waste my time.
Jon, I would almost recommend just watching the first half and then calling me to tell you how it ends.
It's worth a rental though some night when you're bored.
i put this on the same plain as shall we dance? what are you thinking? your trustworthiness in reviewing films is quickly diminishing. you gave this movie $6 and Last Days $4? you need to get your head checked right away.
what is the final vantage point?
nathan, I don't apologize for enjoying the occasional movie made just for entertainment. This one was ok but it gets a mild recommendation because it entertained me, which was it's point.
Last Days did nothing for me, or at least not enough to earn a recommendation that's for sure.
Oh my god, there's a lot of helpful info above!
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