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Capone Says VANTAGE POINT Is "wheelbarrows full of dumb fun"!!
Hey all. Capone in Chicago here.
Some ideas are so crazy they just might work. Welcome to VANTAGE POINT, a film that hasn't got a clue that the expression "less is more" even exits.
It exists solely because it believes that if you show us the same thing over and over (and over and over) and over and over again, we'll learn a little bit more about the world around us with each showing. The conceit of this star-studded work is that by giving us about 20 minutes of an earth-shattering event from the points of view of various key players in said events, an audience will be drawn slowly into the layered plot until a great mystery is revealed. And you know what? That's exactly what happens.
Normally I'd simply look at the cast of this kind of film and assume that there are simply too many good actors here for this to be any damn good, and I'd happily be proven wrong. This is in no way as sophisticated a film as the works of, say, Alejandro Gonzáez Iñárritu (BABEL; 21 GRAMS), but VANTAGE POINT's goal aren't quite as lofty. It wants to tell its tale of an assassination attempt on the President of the United States (William Hurt) in a unique way, and on that level, it succeeds.
Set in small city in Spain, the film takes place during the opening remarks of what is said to be a summit between the Western World and the Arab nations, where a treaty of some sort will be signed to end all terrorism (or something like that). As he's about to make his remarks in a crowded square surrounded by high buildings (a situation the Secret Service would never let happen, FYI), the president is shot and quickly whisked away in an ambulance moments before a bomb goes off in the square. We see this events first from the inside the remote control room of a CNN-like news organization, led by Sigourney Weaver. They have a reporter in the square who appears to die in the blast.
Then the film actually rewinds, and shows us essentially the same 20 minutes from the perspective of a Secret Service agent (Dennis Quaid), who has only just returned to duty after saving the president's life a year earlier, and the layers to this complicated plot begin to peel back. Does he spot the shooter? Does a Spanish suspect he tackles hold the key to the shooting? Does an American tourist (Forrest Whitaker) and his video camera hold the key to unlocking this mystery? Then the film rewinds again to show us Whitaker's perspective, then the suspect's, then a little girl and her mother, then the president's--until eight vantage points are revealed. It sounds redundant, but most of the time it's captivating.
The film doesn't quite find the means to spend its entire 90-minute length using this gimmick; it lasts about an hour before it simply gives in to more traditional storytelling. But while it's in play, the device is effective.
I won't argue with those who find the sheer number of coincidental run-ins a bit too convenient, especially toward the end of the film. But I defy you not to have some amount of fun watching VANTAGE POINT. Quaid is the sentimental favorite here, playing the emotionally and physically wounded soldier who still has PTSD flashes, but overcomes them to play a decaffeinated version of Jack Bauer. He's the only one in the film who acts and reacts as I believe a real person in his situation might. He's our ears and eyes, and he does a solid job pulling us through this sometimes implausible story.
VANTAGE POINT never stops moving. If it gave you even a minute's peace, you would probably start to think about it a little too hard and get really mad at it for jerking you around. But as it is constructed and executed, it's wheelbarrows full of dumb fun.
Capone
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this was directed by Eli Roth, it could have been a FUCKING FANTASTIC MOVIE...
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I have not seen one item on this flick on this website. I have to admit that the previews do have me interested.
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that it doesn't do it for the whole movie, I was hoping for a crazy Americanized Rashamon type movie on the assisanation of the Pres.
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From every review I've seen so far. By the way, a CTRL-F function revealed no matches for the word "Rashomon."
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full of dumb. You know something interesting about Mattew Fox? Nothing.
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I've had to sit through the fucking trailer at least 30 damn times with in the past year(regal absolutley loves this fucking movie). Hell 30 times 5 minutes = 2.5 hours. That's as long as the fucking movie!
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IT WAS AWESOME! I SAW RAMBO TODAY!
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Good guy who makes good movies.
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Dennis Quaid looks so epic in the trailer for this film. I swear he's giving it his all, it's the role of his life.
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"...where a treaty of some sort will be signed to end all terrorism (or something like that)..." - Nice.
Real interested in that plot, huh? Good grasp of the... oh fuck it? why should I bother... -
well because someone is wrong on the internet and you and only you can correct them.
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then I'm definitely skipping it, since Babel was so much crap.
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Despite it's Rashomon concept, this just seems like another film in the long line up of super over hyped and advertised movies that Sony manages to churn out.
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Babel was awful, I don't see how or why any single person can say it was a great film.
The entire segment with the Asian girl was completely unnecessary and only strenuously connected to the plot at BEST, and cutting that whole section wouldn't have changed the plot at all. That's a sure sign you have a shitty movie with unneeded garbage, which was pretty much all of Babel.
"I know! Let's have a little Muslim boy jack off to his sister, and she'll like it! Oscar worthy movie here we come!" -
section of Babel is not literly connected to the plot -- it is thematically connected. The theme being communication and lack thereof; Tower of Babel and shit.
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Just saw Vantage Point. I agree with the review. Dumb fun. It gets pretty damn cheesy in the 3rd act. Like the zoom in on the two leads eyes during the car chase. DRAMA! And Dennis Quaid, whose character is Super Secret Service Agent, runs toward the bad guy firing his gun with his eyes closed. Uh, Dennis? Agents probably aren't scared of the sound of their own gun and I'd bet they keep their eyes open when they fire. Ya know...to see the target and stuff. One last thing...After it goes to black and shows 12:00 P.M. for the fourth or fifth time everyone in the audience would giggle. My God I came to dread those transitions.
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I saw it, I got the gimmick, and normally I would have written it off, but god damn if it didn't draw me in...after the trailer I swear I needed a cigarette and a morning after pill, and I'm hoping the actual film makes it worth my while...
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No, this film does not try to make the Americans look like the bad guy. Yes, as in the trailer, they used a double for the event but there's a reason behind it. There is a group behind all of these things that are going on. I liked it a lot, it's a movie that will keep your mind going as you watch it.
And yeah, wtf is up with people laughing when it shows the time counting down? There is absolutely nothing funny about 12:00pm being up on a movie screen.
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