Ponto de Vista

I must admit I went into the theatre interested, but skeptical. Slowly, I got drawn into things, and by the time the we were at the fourth vantage point, I was fascinated by how all the stories interrelated with each other, and wondering the story would end up.

The acting is uniformly excellent, especially that of Dennis Quaid, who I had previously considered a mostly comic actor, but is very convincing here as a Secret Service agent.

The direction and script are also excellent, especially when you consider both are first-timers in the world of feature films. The script was not without its clichés, but I didn't see most of the plot twists coming, which I can usually spot coming a mile away in a film like this. There was one real groaner of a plot twist that you'd have to be an idiot not to see, but it goes by so fast that it doesn't really matter.

A lot of the audience in the screening I was at got frustrated by the repeated sections, obviously having no attention span. But once the third act of the film kicks into gear, everybody stopped complaining.

Speaking of which, the third act is the payoff which we've all been waiting for. Seeing all the plot threads converge in such a convincing matter was nice, as was the final action scene, which seems like it was plucked right out of one of the Bourne films. This comes as little surprise, since director Pete Travis and Bourne series director Paul Greengrass have worked together in the past.

As skeptical as I had gone in, I came out impressed. Not since The Bourne Ultimatum have I seen such a convincing, engrossing action thriller.

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.

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 .

One crime, multiple vantage points. Sounds cool right? Yes. But "Vantage Point" never really pulls it off quite how it sets itself up to. The result is a cool action flick with some clever storytelling that sort of fizzles in the end.

In "Vantage Point," the President of the United States (William Hurt) arrives in Salamanca, Spain to give a speech on global terrorism efforts and ties with Spain to improve them. He gets shot and then a bomb goes off killing many people. We get this story through the eyes of a variety of characters and by the end of the film know exactly what happened.

The cast is a solid mix of familiar and old faces. Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, Matthew Fox (of LOST fame) and even Sigorney Weaver give this film the star power it requires. The terrorists are entirely new faces, which is no real surprise.

As the film first presents the vantage point concept, the first thirty or forty-five minutes develop a redundancy. You do get many new perspectives, but seeing the same events happen over and over again and the cheesy rewind sequences to establish a change in POV really gets a bit boring. Sometimes you're not really seeing something new, just the same old thing in a new way that doesn't really bring more insight into the plot. Sometime it does and it really helps the film, but mostly it's not the vantage points, but cutting the story off at pivotal moments and clues into the mystery so that when they're revealed in another perspective you can get excited. It's just good storytelling, nothing unique.

The film really loses its appeal, however, with the "final perspective." In fact, it's not really anyone's perspective. The writers sort of realized that adding five more perspectives to reveal the full mystery (which is what it would have taken) would really bother viewers and get absurdly repetitive, so they combined them all into a final twenty minute action sequence that is like any other normal action movie.

Was deviating from the concept in order to please viewers and keep the film short the best course of action? For this film, yes. Sticking to the concept would have made it bad considering the complexity of the plot. But even the ending can also be seen about 15 minutes prior to when it happens, so it's not really all that great. This film would have been better, however, if it could both stay true to the structural concept and please the viewer, which means first-time writer Barry Levy stretched his idea just a bit too far. ~Steven C

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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.