Angles d'attaque

US President Henry Ashton (William Hurt) is in Salamanca, Spain , accompanied by his security agents (Matthew Fox and Dennis Quaid as agent newly returned from previous wounds) , for a world summit where an international treaty dealing with the fight against global terrorism will be signed and which was highly promoted by the USA . Then an unknown sniper is able to shoot him and a bomb goes off in the square and it causes panic , destruction , mass confusion and hysteria . Meanwhile , TV Executive Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver whose role was originally written as a male but filmmaker changed it to a woman because he felt the movie lacked a strong female character) is shooting the surprising deeds . The attempted assassination of the American President is told and re-told from several different perspectives , as from a tourist (in the original screenplay, the tourist was a Russian , as when Forest Whitaker auditioned for a different role, filmmaker was so impressed that he rewrote as an American tourist) or a Spanish police (Eduardo Noriega) o terrorists (Edgar Ramirez ,Saïd Taghmaoui , Ayelet Zurer) and fourth is the president himself . At the end new vantage point is shown revealing additional details, which definitively completes the flick of what really took place during the incident and who was involved in the conspiracy.

Stirring as well as exciting film packs noisy action , thrills , suspense , explosions , violence , twits and turns . Thrilling film with a peculiar edition narrated under several sight points , as various minutes are retold, emphasizing different characters' actions and gradually, we discover who's behind the script . The studio originally wanted to shoot the entire film in Salamanca, Spain, but the local government refused to close the Plaza Mayor for nearly 3 months and only the scenes filmed from the air were shot in Spain , as production was moved to Cuernavaca and Puebla, Mexico . Nevertheless , Matthew Fox, Eduardo Noriega, Forest Whitaker and director Pete Travis attended the premiere, held in Salamanca, Spain, on February 12, 2008 and City Hall declared them "Distinguished Guests". The original script set the story in Madrid, but the producers wanted a more "exotic" location. The fact is revealed in some scenes, like the secret service guy who says they can't locate a single person among "5 or 6 million" (Madrid's population; Salamanca's is much smaller), or when the cop enters a Muslim neighborhood during the foot chase , as Madrid has one, but Salamanca doesn't . Very good production design by Brigitte Boch , when shooting was moved to Mexico, the production design team built a replica of Salamanca's Plaza Mayor, which is slightly smaller than the original . There happens an impressive explosion on the Plaza , it was filmed by fifteen different cameras under direction of excellent photographer Amir Mokri who makes a colorful and evocative cinematography . Moving and adequate Original Music by Atli Örvarsson .

The motion picture was compellingly directed by Pete Travis . He is a director and writer, known for Dredd (2012) , Omagh (2004) , End game (2008) , TV Henry VIII (2003) and Falcón (TV Series) 2012 , set in Sevilla , Spain . The precocious technical mastery displayed by Peter Travis in ¨Vantage Point¨ is magnificent and he delivers narrative fluidity , being helped by a splendid editor , Stuart Baird , both of whom carry out a complex story paced from multiple viewpoints . Rating : 7 . Interesting action film and it will appeal to thriller fans .

Dennis Quaid and William Hurt star in this action thriller with a twist (or better yet, gimmick): the events leading up to the attempted assassination of an American president who is visiting Spain are told from several individuals' points of view. These include Quaid as a Secret Service agent, Hurt as the president, Forest Whittaker as a camcorder-wielding tourist and Edgar Ramirez (a Javier Bardem lookalike) as a Spanish cop. Bruce McGill is the president's hawkish adviser. VANTAGE POINT is fine if you can take the constant rewinding of events to show them from each character's perspective. Personally, I would have preferred fewer rewinds. For my money, Whitaker's overly excited tourist walks away with the movie.

I enjoyed the movie. Dennis Quaid and Forrest Whittaker carried the movie and made it an enjoyable experience. For anyone that is easily made motion sick, the camera work is very shaky during the chase scene and had it lasted much longer would have detracted from the overall experience for me personally. The way the story was told was different but kept me engaged right to the end. I would recommend seeing this film if you get the chance.There is a little something for everyone here. Action, drama, a couple of jokes, and some nice views. There are some actors in this movie that may not be well known, but overall I think everyone in it did an adequate job. If you are a fan of Dennis Quaid you should really like this movie.

What can I say? This film is a gimmick film that relates the same event through the eyes of eight different characters that each hold a piece of the puzzle. The film stops and rewinds back to 20 minutes before the event for each character. It gets a little annoying because each time it stops, the audience is left on a cliffhanger which carries the film's tension into the next character.

As for what the film promises, it promises a good puzzle, suspense and intense action. It delivers on all accounts. This plot has twists and turns and is completely logical. Half way through this movie, if you think you got it all figured out, you haven't got a clue.

The action is fairly balanced through out the film and keeps the film moving. The car chase in this film is one of the better ones I have seen in a long long time. It had some shots in it that I think were a small homage of the original The Italian Job (1969) car chase scene.

Even though I personally thought that some of the characters were paper thin, many of the actors gave strong performances that made the characters believable. Forest Whitaker was the best. I had a little problem with Dennis Quaid's character, Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes, starting out as the thinnest of all the characters but he grows in the film. Of course, Edgar Ramirez, Saïd Taghmaoui, and Eduardo Noriega were right on and make the film (but not as much as Whitaker).

The premise of this film makes a refreshing change from the ordinary style of mainstream movies.

As the Bourne series raises the bar for action films, and audiences balk at two-plus hour runtimes, the filmmakers of Vantage Point seem like they are trying to bring a fresh, new, unconventional take on the action/thriller genre. Though it may annoy some people, I felt the new take turns Vantage Point into a taut terrorist thriller.

The new take or approach is jumping right into the moment (everything is already planned out, people and weapons in place, etc.) of the action and then telling it from eight different points of view. This is where some people may be mildly irritated because after you see one point of view everything is suddenly rewound and shown from the next person's point of view (this is done six times) before they all converge into a thrilling finale filled with one massive adrenaline-fuelled car/chase sequence.

Because of the complex twists and turns of the plot and characters I will be brief, very brief actually, on the plot. It starts with a TV network covering a large gathering of leaders from all over the world (including the President of the United States) who have come together to form an alliance against the war on terror. At the beginning of this meeting the US president is assassinated as he takes the stage, and it begins replaying the assassination through all the different points of view. The editing must be commended in this film as it blends all the points of views so sophisticatedly you cannot help being engrossed, and the star-studded cast includes Dennis Quaid, Mathew Fox, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, and Sigourney Weaver simply adds to everything.

In the theater I was watching some people called out their annoyance of "again?!" on the fifth rewind, which I find amusing as the filmmakers are simply trying to come up with something new in these sequel-ridden times. And probably as those same people say Hollywood is "out of ideas" they get angry when it tries something "different" and would rather go spend their money on Spider-man 8.

I felt Vantage Point was an intelligent thriller, and yes it had its' share of implausible plot points, but these were minor as the new technique makes you feel like you have an all-seeing surveillance system. I kind of felt like I was putting a puzzle together, piece by piece, and as you see a new point of view it adds more to the story and just when you think you have it figured out it changes again.