John's Movie Musings

Every now and then, a movie comes along with a gimmick it tries to sell. In Vantage Point, the gimmick is 20 minutes of plot told from different angles. It's cinema with Instant Replay.

As far as gimmicks go, this one's not the worst you've seen. In fact, it's what got me interested in the movie to begin with. But in order for something like this to work, it has to treat the audience with some respect. Unfortunately, this doesn't.

The plot centers around a Presidential assassination at a UN rally in Spain. There are a half dozen or so different viewpoints of the action (Secret Service, News crew, Tourist, etc), but each one follows a set formula: Introduction to the character, where they are at the assassination, and finally a big reveal before the film rewinds and you move on to the next character.

Sounds great on paper, but that big reveal at the end? Yeah, it always stays hidden from the audience. For example, in one of the early scenes, a Secret Service agent is reviewing some footage from the news crew and finds something important. But you don't get that information. No, you just get a long, drawn out shot of Mr Secret Service agent with a stupid look on his face.

Thrillers can't do this and be taken seriously. Imagine a murder mystery where the killer is known by the good guys within the first five minutes after the fingerprint database gets a hit. But his identity is artificially hidden from you until the end. Now that I've given that example, I'm sure there's some great movie out there that did that. I don't care. For most, the audience needs to be pulled into the experience by the clues and drawn down a specific, logical path only to come to a surprise, logical conclusion. None of this "hide the important details from the audience" nonsense.

Vantage Point is not horrible. But you're left wishing you could rewind it and have it magically get better the second time through.

Grade: C