"What did you see?"
In this relentlessly fast paced thriller of a movie that profited $110,161,491 director Pete Travis and writer Barry L. Levy unleash a unique 90 minute rollercoaster ride that all takes place in a 20 minute time span per character perspective, allowing a constant runaway train pace that never lets up.
When President Ashton (William Hurt) goes to Salamanca Spain to give a speech about combating global terrorism, he's shot twice, and several people in the crowd get deeply involved in the approximate twenty minute aftermath of the shooting. The first person being GNN reporters Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver) and Angie Jones (Zoe Saldana) whom are vigorously working at getting the best coverage from their news van.
The second is Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) who catches early glimpses of the attack to come, and quickly jumps into action to pursue the assassin by making use of the large media coverage and amount of witnesses, while fellow agent Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) remains in hot pursuit of the shooter.
Forest Whitaker plays a nice and likeable tourist whom was clearly enjoying himself up until the shooting. He's armed only with a camcorder and finds himself recording the assassin, and so feels it his moral obligation to discreetly chase the assassin quickly, whilst catching as much useful footage he can on camera. Though on the journey, he finds himself risking his life for a little girl named Anna (Alicia Jazziz Zapien) and getting emotionally involved a bit too much for his own good.
Ayelet Zurer plays Veronica, a woman who appears to be hiding from her policeman boyfriend Enrique (Eduardo Noriega) the fact that she's doing business with a mysterious man named Javier (Edgar Ramirez) that seems to be related to the attack on the president.
Supporting roles include Said Taghmaoui as Suarez, Bruce McGill as presidential advisor Phil McCoullogh, Richard T. Jones as Holden, James LeGros as Ted Heinkin, Holt McCallany as Ron Matthews, and Leonardo Nam as Kevin Cross. All of them (and the main cast) were great in their respective roles. Though because the film is a large ensemble focusing mainly on 8 strangers, the talents of most of these actors couldn't be showcased in the film. However at the same time that doesn't diminish their performances, or bother the viewer while watching it, despite that you may've wanted to see more of one character in particular over another. But in the end, the great story and breakneck pace it unfolds at makes up for any such nuisances.
Cinematographer Amir Mokri did an excellent job at shooting this film, as the jerking camera shots in short succession makes for great chase sequences, and adds to the dramatic tension of each scene; as does the zoomed out shots that jump in randomly. Editor Stuart Baird also added to this with his great cuts between the action and dialogue to the point where even the few talky scenes in the movie seem action oriented. They were both great choices by Pete Travis for the film, as it seems like "24" on steroids at times.
The espionage laden subplot that underlies everything that happens on screen between the main characters develops constantly until the film's climax which consists of the conclusions of each vantage point of the main characters, with numerous cliffhangers throughout that keep you on edge until said climax. Yet the amount of them drives you on edge even more after every flashback to the point where you get to expecting the ending to be the best for a breakneck film of this nature. However, the realism makes the ending not as shocking, nor as brilliant as it could've been, as with all the vantage points you'd probably figure everything out before the climax hits, but that all depends on how much the movie's drawn you in such that you're too involved with all that's happening to find time to think about it. Anyhow, they're great plot devices used by Barry L. Levy.
Overall, this was a great fast paced film that's great the first time, though not as much the second time as the film's built on cliffhanger suspense so that once you've figured it all out, there's not much surprising on the second go 'round, and the realistic action won't be enough to keep you satisfied like in a Michael Bay film. Despite this, "Vantage Point" is definitely worth a watch.
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