Vantage Point Review

I went into Vantage Point knowing that they were going to show certain scenes over and over from different people's point of view.  That made me think the movie would get dull... however it never bored me for a minute! 

At the start the world leaders are meeting in Spain for a summit to stop terrorism.  Within minutes, the President of the US gets shot and hulled off in an ambulance.  But what happened?  Who did it?  And how did they get away with it?  That's the entire plot of the movie.

The Filming technique is that the scene is shown at the start from the POV of the camera crew inside a van.  After the president gets shot, they rewind back to 12 noon and show the entire thing over from the POV of someone else.  This happens again and again from different people's POV and every time we learn a new piece of information.  Just when you think you know what happened, the whole thing changes on you once you see it from the other person's POV.

Once we've seen it from all the main characters POV, the movie takes off to get to the conclusion in a real suspenseful fashion.  In the start we have only seen that same scene, replayed over and over, but once we see all the different point of views, it's time to see what happens AFTER that one scene.

My husband and I decided that one scene must have been taped only once with hundreds of cameras because when you compared one version to the next, anything that was the same (as in the president getting shot) seemed so perfect that it's not like they could have just redone the scene each time. 

The Actors were all great because you never knew what was going on with them.  You think one is trustworthy, but then you think there not, and then you change your mind again.  I would say Dennis Quaid is the star just because he's the one who seems involved the most.  Dennis plays one of the President's security who took a bullet for him just last year.  This summit is supposed to be his first real security job since then and he's great at showing fear while he tries to manage handling the whole situation. 

Forest Whitaker plays a man who decided to travel to Europe to get away from it all.  He's happy and full of life and a very interesting character to watch.  I really thought he brought something to the movie as the man who helps because he cares and not just because he has to.  Sigourney Weaver plays the person running the news van and fits the part of the boss who wants to produce good news and is trying to handle all that has gone down.

There are a lot of Twists and Turns as well as a lot of action and suspense!  Just when you are watching one person's POV and you think they are going to show you what happened, they pause and jump back so you have to wait.  I love how they did this!  It made it so they weren't just laying it all out there and showing you what happened.  Instead, they want to give you a chance to figure it all out based on all the different people's points of view.  You will likely figure parts of it out as you go, but overall there are enough twists that I didn't know what was going to happen in the end.

If you are looking for a thinking movie ,this is the one.  There weren't many people in the theater at 3 PM today, but the ones that were there were all actively trying to figure it out.  I heard multiple people say after each POV what they thought was happening, and they ended up all being wrong by the end.  So go into this movie with your concentration hat on and see if you can figure it out!  Even when you think "I've seen this part already" during someone else's POV, keep watching closely as they throw in just a minor change here and there. 

The only downside is that it is scary to think how much terrorists would be willing to go through and how many innocent lives they will sacrifice for no good reason.  Halfway through I was thinking that even if the people responsible got caught, there would always be more out there that believe and think like they do.  I guess you just have to remember this is a movie and hope that terrorist don't have access to all of the technology and smarts that they did here. 

If you can get past that, you should like the movie.  Enjoy!!