Vantage Point (2007) * 1/2

Directed by:  Pete Travis

Starring:  Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Forrest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver

This is a dopey movie.    I couldn't think of a better word, sorry.    For reasons still unknown to me, the film plays with its timeline and shows the plot from the point of view of various characters.     An example:   A town square in the middle of a small Spanish town is blown to smithereens by a terrorist bomb.     Then, the time is rewound to a few moments before the incident, in which a witness catches things with his handheld camera that hold clues to what would happen moments later.     People are cleared from the scene and then the time is rewound again to before the clearing when another character's point of view is seen and thus revealing more clues.     Think of Memento, only not as good.   

This exercise grows tiresome quickly and it reveals a plot by the terrorists which makes no sense.    The President (Hurt) is seemingly killed in the explosion, but it is revealed that the real President was kidnapped and the double is dead in his place.     What do the kidnappers expect to do with the real President?   Hire him out as a lookalike for parties?    How do you hold him for ransom?   It seems a Secret Service agent (Fox) has betrayed the President and set up the kidnapping.    His senior partner (Quaid) discovers this and races against time to save the real President.     After all, the real President would have to be killed so the insane plot won't be discovered.    Come to think of it, why didn't the terrorists just kill the real President?     I've given much more thought to the plot than the screenwriters have. 

The entirety of Vantage Point is spent springing surprises on the viewer which are ridiculous.    Director Travis was likely banking on the possibility that viewers would be so thrilled by the surprises that they would be taken at face value and not dissected with common sense.     The film is all concept.     I'm amazed it passed the pitch meeting with the studio executives.   Then again, maybe I'm not. 

There are plenty of good actors in Vantage Point and they are wasted in a goofy plot.    Forrest Whitaker was fresh off an Oscar win when the film was released, but his role is rather limited.    And at risk of revealing a spoiler (stop reading if you wish to avoid it), the terrorists are on their way out of town with an escape all but certain.    Naturally, no one is suspicious of a convoy of black trucks fleeing the scene of a bombing, but I digress.     A little girl is crossing the road in front of the lead truck and a passenger screams, "Watch out for the little girl!"   The driver swerves to avoid her and causes a massive pileup which takes out the entire convoy.    Are you kidding me?   They just blew up a town square killing or injuring hundreds of people and they have misgivings about running over one little girl?     Not that I want to see the innocent girl get whacked by the car, mind you, but the terrorists sure picked a bad time to suddenly grow a conscience.      It's not the only scene in the movie that has the viewer scratching his head.