Vantage Point

Eye-witness accounts, by and large, are very unreliable. In court, you need more than just somebody saying “I saw him do it” to get a conviction. The reason is that what we see is completely subject to our perceptions, attitudes and mindset. Memory is editable; things can be cut out, blocked out, and even not recorded at all. That’s why two people can see the same exact event, but have two completely different takes on what happened.

Vantage Point would seem, at first glance, to take advantage of that. But in the end, it kinda… doesn’t. The particulars of the story don’t really turn out to have anything to do with the idea of “perception ≠ truth.” That’s a little disappointing to a cerebral, outside-the-box thinker like me. Vantage Point doesn’t plumb the depths of what we see being the limits of our world, or any such thing. Where it scores major points, though, is in having a fantastic plot, being well-shot, and being excellently paced. Even if it can’t be a deep philosophical treatise (and let’s face it, not every movie can), it can at least get the other, slightly easier elements of moviemaking right; Vantage Point definitely does.

The motif that Vantage Point goes with is the story of an event being told from several different viewpoints, all weaving together to give the viewer a complete picture of what actually happened. Now, this is not a new idea to cinema. Rashomon-style movies have been done ever since… well, Rashomon. It requires an investment on the part of the viewer, as they must be paying attention the whole time. And the payoff must be great indeed to reward that investment. Vantage Point’s payoff is alright, if a little simple-minded. The “event” it concerns is an assassination attempt of the U.S. President during an international summit for peace he has arranged in Spain, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. There is a shooting, and a bombing shortly after, and then another very shortly after that. The entire plot of the movie takes place in approximately 30 minutes real-time, but the movie is just 90 minutes long. It seems longer, but not because it drags. I can’t think of a single moment in the entire film where I was bored or disinterested. It also felt longer in that there was just so much plot and so many characters that it felt very full. One of the strengths of this movie is that it holds your attention throughout.

The movie has varying degrees of success at doing several different things. It has a strong human element to the story, has plenty of action, and always keeps the tension high. Movies as jam-packed as Vantage Point have a tendency to paint the characters as two-dimensional, falling into good guys/bad guys categories, but it amazingly doesn’t do that. Those categories do exist, but they break down and bleed together at a certain point for some characters. The movie never quite lets you off the hook, and does some funny things with our perceptions of character. None of the acting is spectacular, with the possible exception of Forrest Whitaker. His portrayal of an average Joe who does the right thing because it’s what needs to be done is very real and appealing, though I’m sure it wasn’t even a shadow of a challenge for him.

That brings me to the plot, which in the contexts of narrative flow and storytelling, was out of this world. It had all the major elements that make a great plot solidly in hand: it was engaging throughout, kept us interested on multiple levels, and revealed essential plot points at just the right times. It would have been nice if the story had a deeper meaning, but it was such a great ride that I’m not that disappointed. It didn’t quite answer all my questions, and was ever-so-slightly unbelievable, but considering how far it could have gone off the deep end, it executed itself very well. It was tight throughout, and at the end, it made sense. As the viewer, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I was able to follow it, which is a tricky thing for a movie to pull off.

Vantage Point could have been better, but that might be asking a lot of a movie that already has so much going for it. All the elements come together very nicely, and the pieces all fit together to make a complete picture that I could understand. It’s a shame this didn’t do better at the box office, because it was a tightly constructed movie that didn’t make me work my skepticism too much.

Iconic Lines:
“He doesn’t even look like me.”
“The beauty of American arrogance is that they can’t imagine a world where they’re not a step ahead.”

22 Rating: 13

Particle Man