Product Description

Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Forest Whitaker, Zoe SaldanaDirectors: Pete Travis

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8313 in DVD
• Brand: Blu-ray Thriller
• Released on: 2008-08-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.co.uk review

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 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 within fifteen minutes 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" might be more accurate. The opening reel, effectively jolting, affords an initial overview of the events through the eyes, lenses, monitors, and duelling sensibilities of a TV news producer (Sigourney Weaver), her activist-minded reporter (Zoe Saldana) and crew. Everybody’s in Salamanca 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 closeup--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

Synopsis
A presidential assassination attempt is told from multiple points of view in Pete Travis' directorial debut, VANTAGE POINT. U.S. president Ashton (William Hurt) is in Salamanca, Spain, to announce plans for a major global summit on terrorism. But as he stands behind the podium in front of an adoring crowd (with protesters blocked off from the stage), he is shot twice, followed shortly by a small explosion and then a massive blast. Secret Service Agents Barnes (Dennis Quaid), Taylor (Matthew Fox), and Holden (Richard T. Jones) immediately jump into action, trying to find the terrorists responsible amid all the chaos. The thriller first shows the events through the eyes of television news producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver), and then the film rewinds, replaying the action from a different point of view. Each perspective reveals a few more clues, then rewinds again, taking the audience through the assassination attempt and its aftermath again.
VANTAGE POINT has the feel of the 1950 Akira Kurosawa classic RASHOMON, told with the speed of the television show 24. The all-star cast also includes Forest Whitaker (THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND), who gives another fine performance, playing an American tourist recording everything on his video camera. The rewind device--reminiscent of the Bill Murray comedy GROUNDHOG DAY--could have been gimmicky, but instead Travis and first-time screenwriter Barry L. Levy make it work, as more details are revealed with each flashback, leading to a pulse-pounding chase and surprising finale.

Customer Reviews

The Folly of Man
Vantage point is a modern day Hitchcock type film that revels in things not being as they first seem. From the initial viewing of events we assume the the President of America has been shot and that at least one bomb has been activated. Over the following 90 minutes we will discover the varying types of truth as the film follows numerous people through the event. As we uncover new avenues what we saw previously takes on new significance.

I felt that 'Vantage Point' was a solid, if not spectacular, action thriller. The style of re-showing the same events from different points of view does work and is not boring at all. The issue I had with the film was that it eventually abandoned the structure for a generic finale. I also felt that although overall the acting was good there were a few miscast people, especially the female news presenter. Finally, although the film is meant to be serious some of the situations were a bit ridiculous with characters (i.e. men) doing stuff for stupid reasons. Overall, a fun film, but not much more.

The BluRay transfer is a good one with some interesting extras including a GPS system that allows you to follow the characters whereabouts as the film progresses.

8 Strangers. 8 Points of View. 1 Truth makes.....
'Vantage Point' a solid film. It has a fast-paced, action-cum-political thriller that reaches out to those who enjoy gun fights and car chases but want substance when it comes to the plot and characters. The film centers on the story of the attempted assassination of the American president just as he's about to address a peace conference in Spain. We see the perspective of eight people caught up in the events, from the terrorists themselves to CIA agents to ordinary citizens, with each person holding a piece of the puzzle that comes neatly together to deliver the end result.

The cast all succeed in their roles, which wasn't easy considering they couldn't rely on interaction with other characters to hold them up and so much of the film relies on each actor delivering their part of the story in a solid manner. Dennis Quaid and Forest Whitaker were both excellent in their respective roles as two men who are heroes in different ways while Saïd Taghmaoui, Ayelet Zurer and Edgar Ramirez did well in providing the backbone of the film. Since the film rewinds several times there is little room for characterization, the only attempts at this were brief and focused on Forest Whitaker and Dennis Quaid

'Vantage Point' took a plot and portrayed it in a unique approach, which is partially why I felt it was so entertaining. It kept me on tenterhooks throughout, especially as I waited to see how each character fitted into the story (although, such a way of filming could bore audiences fast if other films decided to copy). While the actual plot was a tad unrealistic and wrapped up in a too convenient manner, I think we accept that this is the norm for most actions films and that is part of what makes them fun. We see enough realism in the news, after all. And the action scenes are shot for maximum entertainment, particularly the car chase which was thrilling without dragging on. Overall, this is an enjoyable film, an intelligent action flick that is short and sweet. It's also of the few films these days which addresses the terrorism threat to the Western World without spoon feeding us some over-emphasized point or descending into anti-Americanism. Definitely worth a look.

Sub-titles??
Sub-titles are: Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (Hard of Hearing), English, Estonian, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Swedish and Turkish.