|
Vantage Point
Columbia Pictures, 90mins, PG-13
Directed by
Pete Travis.
Sometimes you can only do something once. IN this instance, it was
many decades ago with a Japanese film called "Rashomon", in which
the same story was told from different points of view. This has, in
the intervening fraction of a century, become a cinematic cliché,
and unless it's done really well, seems tired and worn.
This is tired and worn.
Barry L. Levy's screenplay is basically “we don't have anything
better to do, so let's blow stuff up.” That generally works, but
can only o so far. The “terrorists are out to get us” thing is a
variation of the “we're at fault” Middle East genre thrillers which
have been coming out recently, and it's nice to see them played as
the bad guys for once, but that only goes so far as well.
The film begins in and around a plaza in the Spanish city of
Salamanca, where President Ashton( William Hurt) is leading a summit
of pretty much the entire world's leadership dedicated to defeating
the menace of Islamic imperialism.
Rex Brooks(Sigourney Weaver) is a TV new director conducting her
orchestra of camerapeople and newsmodels who cover the event as
moronically as possible despite the misgivings of reporters like
Angie Jones(Zoe Saldana), who think that the usual bunch of crazies
who always show up at these things might actually have a point.
Then Ashton is shot and things go BOOM!!!!!!, Then they go BOOM!
Again. Then we clumsily go back in time where we follow secret
service agents Thomas Barnes(Dennis Quaid) and Kent Taylor(Matthew
Fox) star in their own segment…then it's groundhog day again, and
this time tourist Howard Lewis(Forest Whitaker) then a Spanish cop,
then the terrorists etc.
This might have worked if the plot wasn't so insanely stupid. The
film starts out fine, then gets more and more insipid as the film
continues on, and once we get to the final segment, the whole thing
becomes a bad parody of “24”.
These are al professionals here, so everyone does a decent job,
which is mostly a bold attempt to wrestle the script the ground,
which they do on occasion. Unfortunately they can't in the last 20
minutes and the whole thing falls apart.
It might be good as a matinee, especially if you like certain drugs.
This is no good sober.
Go
to List of New Reviews
Go to Index Archives of
past reviews
|