Vantage Point (Two-Disc Special Edition) | 
| Actors: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $34.95
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Rating:  156 reviews
Sales Rank: 47212
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: 26669
UPC: 043396266698
EAN: 0043396266698
ASIN: B0018CWW32
Release Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
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)
Product Description
AS THE PRESIDENT ARRIVES IN SALAMANCA, GUNSHOTS RING OUT. AN AMERICAN TOURIST HAS CAPTURED FOOTAGE OF TE WOULD-BE ASSASSIN ON VIDEOTAPE, & NOW, AS THE STORIES OF THE OTHER FOUR WITNESSES UNFOLD, EACH PIECE OF THE PUZZLE FALLS INTO PLACE. ONLY WHEN ALL THE STORIES ARE TOLD WILL THE SHOCKING TRUTH FINALLY EMERGE.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 151 more reviews...
 vantage point June 21, 2009
Matthew S. Adamko (Maryland,USA)
the plot to the movie only takes about 30 minutes to complete. however, the different "vantage points" (vision of the crime scene) make the movie fairly long
 I Liked This One June 19, 2009
Scott Yates
I had wanted to see this one since I saw a trailer in the theater, and it looked like it had a good cast with a decent stroyline. It was pretty clear from the trailers that the President was getting shot and different people saw it in different ways.
And that is exactly what happens. I thought it was pretty well done as each person's point of view rewinds events back to the time of the attack, and then branches off to their repsective perspectives. And each flashback adds a little bit and piece to what happened and I found myself trying to tie each person and parts together. Each piece added to the question of who was the good guy or gal, and who was the bad one.
It comes together towards the end with a rather traditional chase scene (which was also hinted at throughout the movie in the flashbacks.) At the end everything gets resolved a bit neatly in terms of who gets what, and there were a couple of things that were a little annoying in that they did not make sense from what was shown of the charactors. In other words some things bad guys would have done they did not do (do not want to play spolier though.)
But the small parts were not too objectionable in light of the fact that this is a general thriller and usually there will be one or two things that miss the mark.
There are other thrillers that are better, and some other movies portray the switching persepctive/stories better. But if you just want to watch a general thriller that has a couple of warts, this one is good. If you are a bit picky about thrillers and some logical inconsistencies will be something that detracts, you may not like it as much as I did.
 Contains Allusions to Actual Assassination Events June 15, 2009
Jan Peczkis (Chicago IL, USA)
Perhaps unintentionally, the makers of this flick have made it coincide with some real events. The scene of the assassination of the stand-in US President is reminiscent of St. Peter's Square, where Pope John Paul II was shot in 1981. The different viewpoints of what took place are reminiscent of the conflicting accounts of the assassination of JFK in 1963, which, of course, has encouraged conspiracy theories.
Is this flick designed to encourage Islamophobia? I think not. The real US President makes a statement in which he makes it clear that the 5 terrorists from Morocco should not be conflated with the 6 million peaceful citizens of that nation. He also realizes that the terrorists hope to provoke a US retaliation that would only antagonize peaceful Arabs.
Parts of the plot are farfetched: The assassins are totally successful, never make a mistake, and never encounter a serious obstacle to their plans. The car chasers encounter crash after crash without getting killed. A terrorist spins the car he is driving out of control in order to avoid hitting a little girl on the road. Is this intended to show that even the most cold-blooded of terrorists can have a heart?
Great concept, great performances. Worth seeing! June 14, 2009
Nicole Bradshaw (Jackson, MS USA)
Here's the skinny: Vantage Point covers an intense hourlong period in the lives of several key characters. At the culmination of a historic peace summit in Salamanca, Spain, an attempt is made on the life of the President of the United States. Each one of the primary characters sees and knows something about the true culprit. Over the course of the film, the hour is rewinded and replayed through the eyes of each character until, finally, the audience has the whole story.
This was a great action thriller. I loved the style and premise of the movie, and I really loved the fact that, even though the movie was largely about action, all the performers were really strong in their roles.
The cast was great, with heavy-hitters even in small roles. Matthew Fox plays Agent Taylor, who serves on the President's Secret Service detail. Dennis Quaid plays Agent Thomas Barnes, who's recently returned to the detail after taking a bullet for the President the previous year. William Hurt plays the Prez, and Sigourney Weaver has a great (but small) part as Rex, a television journalist on-site to cover the summit. Forest Whitaker turns in a touching performance as Howard, an American with a troubled marriage in town to observe the festivities. There are also several foreign actors in the film that you may not recognize, but who deliver the goods on screen just as well as their famous co-stars - Edgar Ramirez, Ayelet Zurer, Eduardo Noriega, and Said Taghmaqui.
I won't spoil how everything shakes out, but the ending had me on the very edge of my seat. I also think the movie made some interesting larger points about global politics and terrorism without bashing us all over the head.
See this movie.
 The Presiden't Been Shot ...Again and Again and Again and Again and Again! May 30, 2009
B. Merritt (WWW.FILMREVIEWSTEW.COM, Pacific Grove, California United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The problem with VANTAGE POINT is that it doesn't take into consideration two very important things: the point of view of the watcher, and a believable storyline. Let me explain...
Seeing a situation/crime/etc. from different points of view might be interesting to some. But if you're going to do that, you need to make sure that there are engaging points that aren't repeated ad nauseam. You might think that four or five points of view would be the maximum allowable for something like this. And you'd probably be right. But how about six? Or seven? Too many? Would you believe this one has eight?! Far, far, far too many. And they all start just about the same place, which grated on the nerves after a short while.
The storyline is pretty ridiculous, too. Doppleganger Presidents. Double Secret Service agents. Terrorists who need to hire an assassin. And an ending that is pure schlock.
Not being that much of a fan of Dennis Quaid didn't help matters for me either -- the only two films with him in them that I enjoyed were Enemy Mine and The Big Easy. The rest of his movie repertoire is questionable to say the least; Jaws 3-D, Yours, Mine & Ours, The Day After Tomorrow, etc.
I will say, however, that the action was fun to watch. And seeing William Hurt (Into the Wild) get shot multiple times was pretty enjoyable, too. But that's where my enjoyment stopped. Matthew Fox (Speed Racer) as agent Kent Taylor was completely miscast and unbelievable. But probably the most miscast of all the characters was Forest Whitaker. Having seen Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland, I know what he's capable of. Here, he seemed like an overweight but athletic American out of his league carrying a video camera through Spain because ...well ...we're not sure.
The big and final letdown was the ending of this film. If terrorists are prepared to kill, maim, and destroy innocent people in order to get to the President of the United States, would running over a girl stop them? I doubt that. Which made me nearly turn off the film. But we had to have a happy ending, sweet and sticky, with Quaid saving the day. Ugh.
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