|
Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
Amazon.co.uk review
Vantage Point, which aspires to be a cunningly twisted thriller, comes equipped with plenty of hurtling action, handheld camerawork, what-was-that? editing, and a plot that has multiple, contradictory agendas writhing like a nest of snakes. It's all set within a few blocks of a town square in Spain where a U.S. President is targeted for assassination. Although the movie lasts 90 minutes, the events it depicts are mostly over within fifteen minutes or so--but seen, rewound, and reseen from half a dozen different (you guessed it) vantage points. The first line in the credits reads "Original Film," apparently the name of the production company. "Gimmick Movie" might be more accurate. The opening reel, effectively jolting, affords an initial overview of the events through the eyes, lenses, monitors, and duelling sensibilities of a TV news producer (Sigourney Weaver), her activist-minded reporter (Zoe Saldana) and crew. Everybody’s in Salamanca for the start of an international conference to reaffirm Arab-Western commitment to the fight against terrorism. Terrorism, of course, sees this as an ideal moment to break out. As gunshots and explosions reduce everything to chaos, the clock is reset to zero and we proceed to revisit the scene as experienced by several Secret Service agents (namely Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox), an American tourist with camcorder (Forest Whitaker), sundry locals--including three who may be caught up in a love triangle or a conspiracy or both--and even the President himself (William Hurt).
For a while, this is mildly diverting: that guy, or that gesture, so sinister when glimpsed across the plaza in one run-through, now appears harmless in closeup--or vice versa. But there's no real ambiguity (so stop with the careless comparisons to Kurosawa's Rashomon)--this is a shell game in which the peas aren't worth tracking. Despite decent actors, the characters might as well be holograms (although poor Forest Whitaker is saddled with "motivation" of surpassing sappiness), and the casting telegraphs several twists: one redoubtable good guy practically gives a wink-wink, nudge-nudge that he's really bad, etc. The movie declines to specify which nutjob philosophy the terrorists espouse, and their numbers are multi-ethnic. There's also a laborious suggestion that they have bloodthirsty, reactionary counterparts among the President's inner circle, which perhaps qualifies as redeeming socio-political comment and prompts a meaningless declaration of deep meaning from the Prez. The whole megilleh finally comes down to an extended car chase through impassably claustrophobic streets that would mark a lurch into unintentional self-parody--if only that point hadn't been passed a couple of rewinds earlier. --Richard T. Jameson
Synopsis
An attempt on the life of the president reveals a much larger conspiracy in this thriller starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, and Forest Whitaker. Vantage Point takes the point of view of five witnesses and shows them all to reveal the truth.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
an engaging thriller but wont be to everyones liking,
By
This review is from: Vantage Point [DVD] [2008] (DVD)
Vantage point follows the assassination of a presidential double and is shown through the perspectives of eight people. The film is essentially a jigsaw which you get a clearer picture of at the end even if it seems like a few pieces are still missing.
I've seen so many films I've lost count but vantage point's gimmick, what makes it stand out, if you will is the way in which its told. Through the perspectives of the characters we see the film twist and turn in rapid succession creating a multi-layered story of betrayal and terrorism this style appeals to me as the film spirals in unpredictable directions just when you think you've got it pegged. This style however is where the film receives the majority of its criticism for being repetitive, which to an extent it is, while this style will engage some people it will bore others. Due to the rapid perspective switches few characters are developed and while the cast perform well in their parts they never excel,save perhaps Forest Whitaker. Vantage point boils down to disposable entertainment, which requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief at points an ultimately culminates with blistering car chase, not perfect by any means but worth seeing once if just to draw your own conclusions Overall 7/10
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable film with just a little missing,
By Agnetha "Zizu" (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Vantage Point [DVD] [2008] (DVD)
A top notch cast give some great performances. A very original and thought provoking plot, however it could have been just a little better as I felt something was missing. Maybe the film needed to be longer. The two disc edition has some good interviews with the cast and makers of the film, and also a good audio commentary by the director.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The promise of the start not quite carried to the end but decent thriller overall,
By
This review is from: Vantage Point [DVD] [2008] (DVD)
The movie follows an assassination attempt on the US president from five perspectives, retelling the story from different people's point of view. It may not be the first time the trick was used but it works reasonably well for the first 4 times.
With each telling (or following each person) more details of the plot are uncovered, and it certainly is intriguing for a while, if not particularly plausible. On top of some fairly unplausible scenes (and a truly rugged Opel Astra, to say nothing of the driving), where the movie loses a bit in my eyes is in the lone hero Quaid, the role and the earnest 'born to serve' expression he wears the whole time being fairly clicheed by now. The last repetition was also grating a bit, in that it brought little new apart from the final scene and that by then pretty much everyone guessed the whole plot anyway. If you are not a stickler for detail and you can turn a blind eye to the boundless heroism theme you are likely to enjoy the movie quite a lot. It may not be quite in the Heat [DVD] [1995] or Bourne series class but it is still one of the higher quality action flicks out there.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
