Vantage Point

40

Columbia Pictures (Sony) (90 minutes)
and Pete Travis
Dennis Quaid , Matthew Fox , Forest Whitaker , Sigourney Weaver , and William Hurt

Rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense violence and action, some disturbing images and brief strong language

Summary: In Columbia Pictures' action-packed thriller Vantage Point, eight strangers with eight different points of view try to unlock the truth behind an assassination attempt on the president of the United States. Thomas Barnes and Kent Taylor are two Secret Service agents assigned to protect President Ashton at a landmark summit on the global war on terror. When President Ashton is shot moments after his arrival in Spain, chaos ensues and disparate lives collide in the hunt for the assassin. In the crowd is Howard Lewis, an American tourist who thinks he's captured the shooter on his camcorder while videotaping the event for his kids back home. Also there, relaying the historic event to millions of TV viewers across the globe, is American TV news producer Rex Brooks. As they and others reveal their stories, the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place...and it will become apparent that shocking motivations lurk just beneath the surface. (Columbia Pictures)

William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
(83) Flat-out one of the more exciting and original gut-busters that Hollywood has produced in many a month. It's virtually all action, but the action is never mindless and it is full of marvelous surprises every step of the way.

Lawrence Toppman
Charlotte Observer:
(75) Three-fourths of a terrific thriller, which in this dreary run of winter movies seemed like clear spring water to this parched traveler. The setup is so riveting, the suspense so carefully prolonged, that I didn't mind when it unraveled into lunacy near the end.

Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer:
(75) Because Vantage Point is really a concept movie, the actors are not much more than pawns on the chessboard: They move one square at a time.

David Denby
The New Yorker:
(70) Is it art? Not remotely. But, up to the final scenes, it’s a tremendous piece of engineering. After all, the narratives have to synch up visually, which can’t be easy to manage. And the hurtling force of Vantage Point is fun to watch.

Richard Corliss
Time:
(70) The movie is best seen as straightforward, sometimes harrowing melodrama, packed with mistaken identities, beautiful villains, a kindly tourist who can outrace the bad guys, and a lost little girl whom the film brazenly sends onto a highway full of speeding cars. It's as if Dakota Fanning had wandered onto the streets of Ronin.

Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader:
(70) If you're up for good nihilist entertainment, look no further.

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