Vantage Point (film)
Encyclopedia
Vantage Point is a 2008 American political
action thriller film directed by Pete Travis
. It was adapted from a screenplay written by Barry L. Levy
. The story focuses on an assassination
attempt on the President of the United States
as seen from a different set of vantage points through the eyes of eight strangers. Dennis Quaid
, Matthew Fox
, Forest Whitaker
, William Hurt
, and Sigourney Weaver
star in principal roles. The film is often compared, unfavorably, to Akira Kurosawa
's Rashomon
, which also employed the telling of a story through multiple perspectives, but in order to question the possibility of "truth". Unlike the Rashomon effect
, Vantage Point recounts a series of events which are re-enacted from several different perspectives and viewpoints in order to reveal a "truthful" account of what happened. Vantage Point explores kidnapping, assassination and terrorism.
The motion picture was a co-production between the film studios of Relativity Media, Original Film, and Art In Motion. It was commercially distributed by Columbia Pictures
theatrically, and by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
in home media format. The film project began principal photography in Mexico City
on June 18, 2006. Executive producers for the film comprised, Callum Greene, Tania Landau, and Lynwood Spinks. On February 26, 2008, the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released by the Varese Sarabande
label. The film score was composed by musician Atli Örvarsson
.
Following its premiere on February 22, 2008, Vantage Point grossed $72,266,306 in domestic ticket receipts. The film was screened at 3,163 theaters during its widest release nationwide in the United States. It earned an additional $78,895,185 in business through international release to top out at a combined $151,161,491 in gross revenue. The film was technically considered a strong financial success due to its $40 million budget costs. Preceding its theatrical run though, the film was generally met with negative critical reviews. The widescreen DVD and high-definition Blu-ray Disc editions of the film featuring the director's audio commentary and interviews with the cast and crew, were both released in the United States on July 8, 2008.
) attends a political summit in Salamanca, Spain to promote an international treaty. Displayed with eight differing viewpoints, an assassination attempt on the president occurs, relayed in a time span of 23 minutes. Each time the events unfold from the beginning, a new vantage point is shown revealing additional details, which ultimately completes the story of what actually took place during the incident.
From the first vantage point, GNN producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver
), directs various media personnel from a mobile television studio as the president arrives at the gathering. Mayor De Soto (Jose Carlos Rodriguez) delivers a short speech and then introduces the president, who is shot twice as he greets the crowd from the podium. An explosion outside the plaza soon follows. Moments later, the podium itself is destroyed by a secondary explosion, killing and injuring numerous people. As the smoke clears, GNN reporter Angie Jones (Zoe Saldana
) is seen lying dead in the rubble.
The second vantage point follows Secret Service agents Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid
) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox
). Barnes notices a curtain fluttering in the window of a nearby building that was allegedly vacated. He also observes American tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker
) filming the audience. After the president is shot, Barnes tackles a man rushing to the podium named Enrique (Eduardo Noriega
). Taylor pursues a lead to a potential assassin. Following the second explosion, Barnes barges into the GNN production studio and asks to view their footage. He calls Taylor, who reports the direction of the suspected assassin's escape route. Barnes then views an image on one of the camera's live feeds that startles him and prompts him to run out.
In the third vantage point, Enrique, who claims to be a Spanish police officer assigned to protecting the mayor of Salamanca, sees his girlfriend Veronica (Ayelet Zurer
), being embraced by a stranger and overhears them speaking about meeting under an overpass. When he confronts her, Veronica assures Enrique of her love for him as he hands her a bag. When the president is shot, Enrique rushes onto the stage to protect the mayor, but is tackled by Barnes. While being detained, he witnesses Veronica toss the bag he gave her under the podium, causing the second explosion. Enrique escapes as the agents who previously had him in custody, mount a chase while firing shots in his direction, failing to subdue him. Enrique confronts an unseen individual at the overpass and asks if he is surprised to see him still alive.
The fourth vantage point revolves around Howard Lewis who is chatting with a man called Sam (Said Taghmaoui
), while a little girl named Anna (Alicia Zapien), bumps into him and drops her ice cream. Later, Lewis notices Barnes looking at the curtain fluttering in the window of a nearby building, and captures the footage with his camcorder. Following the second explosion at the podium, Lewis chases Enrique and the pursuing Secret Service agents. At the overpass, Lewis views the pair of agents from afar shooting in the direction of Enrique as he greets an individual in a police uniform under the overpass. Seriously wounded, Enrique falls to the ground. Lewis sees Anna who had earlier become separated from her mother, trying to cross a busy intersection. An ambulance races down the road about to hit Anna, as Lewis runs out to save her.
The fifth vantage point begins as President Ashton, having been informed of a credible assassination threat, has returned to his hotel room with his aides while his body double proceeds to the gathering in the plaza. The first explosion, which occurs just outside the hotel, is revealed to be a device detonated by a suicide bomber disguised as a bellhop. Seconds later, a masked assailant bursts into the president's room, shoots his advisers and then proceeds in abducting Ashton.
By the sixth vantage point, terrorist Suarez, previously seen as Sam; shoots Ashton's body double using a remote-controlled automatic rifle placed in an adjacent window next to the one with the fluttering curtain that had drawn Barnes' attention earlier. The rifle is retrieved by Taylor, whom Barnes sees leaving the scene wearing a Spanish policeman's uniform on one of the GNN live feeds, even though he tells Barnes that he's in pursuit of the assassin over the phone. Barnes realizes Taylor is actually part of the terror plot. The man Enrique saw embracing Veronica is revealed to be sharpshooter Javier (Edgar Ramirez
), whose brother is being held hostage to ensure Javier's cooperation with the terrorists. Javier kills the guards and aides within the hotel, and kidnaps the president. Ashton is later placed in an ambulance with Suarez and Veronica disguised as medics. Javier joins Taylor in a police car to a planned rendezvous at the overpass. Barnes commandeers a car and chases Taylor and Javier. Barnes however, gets into a collision with a truck, allowing the duo to escape. At the overpass, Enrique, who did not die in the blast at the podium as intended, confronts Javier and Taylor. Enraged, Javier shoots Enrique, mistakenly believing he had knowledge of his kidnapped brother's whereabouts. Javier is then shot and killed by Taylor when he demands to be brought to his brother, who had been killed earlier by Suarez. Enrique dies of his wounds as Barnes reaches the scene on foot firing several rounds at Taylor, who attempts to flee. After crashing his car, a critically injured Taylor is dragged out by Barnes. He orders Taylor to reveal where the president has been taken, but Taylor dies. Meanwhile, Ashton regains consciousness in the ambulance and attacks Veronica, distracting her and Suarez just as Anna runs into their path. Suarez swerves causing the ambulance to flip over just as Lewis pulls Anna out of its way. Barnes runs to the ambulance where he sees Veronica lying dead. He shoots Suarez dead and rescues the president.
an. In Plotting an Assassination, a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, director Pete Travis explained how he felt there were so few strong female characters in the film, that he decided to cast Sigourney Weaver
as the GNN producer. When Forest Whitaker
expressed interest in participating in the project, Travis welcomed the chance to work with him by Americanizing the character of Howard.
Originally scheduled for a 2007 release by Sony, the film began principal photography on June 18, 2006 in Mexico City
. Locations included the Casa de los Azulejos
. Director Travis discussed the difficulties the cast and crew faced each day as they tried to film during the height of Mexico
's rainy season. He credited cinematographer Amir Mokri
and the lighting crew for making it look like the twenty-minute segment portrayed in the film unfolded under clear and sunny skies when in fact it frequently was overcast and drizzling during filming. In addition to the Mexico City locations, some exteriors were shot in Cuernavaca
, Casa de los Azulejos
and Puebla
.
During filming, the crew worked with decorated U.S. Army veteran Ron Blecker, in order to help the lead actors prepare themselves to play Secret Service agents. Describing his experience, Quaid commented "We were there for two weeks before we started shooting. We trained as a team, as a Secret Service unit, of these guys. The president never goes anywhere that it's not choreographed well in advance. That’s what we would do". One of the difficult elements of the filming were the car chase scenes. Quaid admitted, "Except for the actual 40-mile-an-hour crashes" he did most of the driving sequences himself. On the dynamics of the storyline, Quaid mentioned "When I read a script, it’s the only time I get to be an audience member. It’s the first time I experience something. It really read so well that I felt if they could just put this on screen, it was going to work. Pete not only did that, but he really elevated it as well, in the way that he shot it." Regarding the multiple performances of the same event, Quaid explained "I just played it the same way the entire time," He went further adding "because it’s from another person’s point-of-view, then the audience has a different perception - even though I’m doing the same thing. You get to see this 15 minutes, then the next time you shoot that same 15 minutes, you might catch a different angle of that character that you couldn’t see before ... what that character was thinking. You see them go around the corner and what really happened, from what they said. It’s what is interesting and what is so exciting about this movie."
Actor Matthew Fox explained how the series of events filmed a number of times, presented its difficulties. He said that "Just on a technical basis, film can be a very tedious process," but added, "when you get into a situation where you're going to tell the same events through eight different perspectives, it becomes like eight times as tedious. You're doing these sequences over and over and over again." Working with the director, Fox felt "That was the real fun thing for Pete Travis and I to do together. I loved working with him and he's a real actor's director in that he gets right in there with you. He's thinking about the character from the point of view of the character." Fox believed his training for his part was instrumental in achieving the desired effect. He commented "It was always very important to [director Pete Travis] that we pull off the logistics of what we were doing as Secret Service agents and as that whole team, that the real physical elements of it, where guns are carried, how voice things are used, the structure of getting in and out of cars, that was accurate. We did have consultants". In complimenting his co-actors, Fox viewed them as being inspirational; "Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt ... I mean, I was just very happy to be working in the same movie as all three of them as a huge fan. I respect their work a great deal." Fox summed up his experience in the film by exclaiming "This movie and the concept of perspective is something that the idea that one event can be perceived so differently by two different people depending on where they're standing, who they are and how they want to perceive it, if they have an agenda to perceive it a certain way, is something I think about all the time in my life, in my own individual microworld in relationships that I have."
music label on February 26, 2008. The score for the film was orchestrated by Atli Örvarsson
and mixed by Alan Meyerson. Dina Eaton edited the film's music.
, Sweden
and Switzerland
. Other European markets in Portugal and Croatia had the film premiering on April 3. It went into general theatrical release in the U.S., Canada and Mexico on February 22. Certain Asian-Pacific markets; Australia and New Zealand saw the premiere of the film on March 13, while in Malaysia it screened the following day on March 14.
widescreen
edition of the film was released on DVD
in the United States on July 1, 2008. Special features for the DVD include; Surveillance Tapes: Outakes, Interviews with the Cast and Crew titled An Inside Perspective, Plotting an Assassination feature, Coordinating Chaos stunt featurette, and the director's commentary. Additionally, a two-disc Special Edition DVD was also released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
on July 1, 2008. Viewers have the option of seeing the film in either anamorphic widescreen
or fullscreen
formats. Special features include; Surveillance Tapes: Outakes, Interviews with the Cast and Crew titled An Inside Perspective, Plotting an Assassination feature, Coordinating Chaos stunt featurette, the director's commentary, and a Digital Copy of the film that can be downloaded to a PC
with a DVD-ROM option, or a Sony PSP
.
The widescreen hi-definition Blu-ray Disc
version of the film was released on July 1, 2008. Special features include; Surveillance Tapes: Outakes, Interviews with the Cast and Crew titled An Inside Perspective, Plotting an Assassination feature, Coordinating Chaos stunt featurette, and the director's commentary. The disc also includes an exclusive Vantage Viewer feature, allowing for a tracking movement of each character's location and vantage point throughout the film. A UMD
version of the film for the Sony Playstation Portable
was released on July 1, 2008. The disc features dubbed, subtitled, and color widescreen format viewing options. A supplemental viewing option for the film in the media format of Video on demand
is available as well.
reported that 34% of 149 sampled critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 5.0 out of 10. At Metacritic
, which assigns a weighted average
out of 100 to critics' reviews, the film received a score of 40 based on 32 reviews. Following its cinematic release in 2008, Vantage Point won the Golden Trailer Award
for Best Thriller. It also garnered a nomination from the Taurus World Stunt Awards
in the category of Best Work With A Vehicle in 2009.
Jim Lane, writing in the Sacramento News & Review, said in outward negativity, "It all winds up—or dribbles down—to yet another chase through crowded streets in commandeered cars, with an ending meant to be ironic but simply providing a crowning howler to all the Rube Goldberg nonsense." He emphatically believed, "with all the repetition and a modest 90-minute running time, they run out of ideas before they run out of film." Left unimpressed, Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle
, wrote that the film "has a fractured and frustrating narrative." Unlike Akira Kurosawa
's classic film Rashomon
, which is structured around multiple retellings of the same event, LaSalle characterizes Vantage Point as "fairly pedestrian, and nothing special is gained from all the stopping and restarting. The title is the tip-off. Aside from the changing-perspectives device, Vantage Point has nothing going on. There's no artistic, philosophical or even jolly entertainment reason for adopting this strategy. It's just arbitrary, a gimmick." Claudia Puig of USA Today
, said the "various viewpoints don't quite link up. And they all employ the same rewind technique once unspooled. Stylistically, this laying out of the facts then speedily going back over them in reverse seems initially intriguing, but it gets old after about the fifth time." She even believed that like "many action-adventure movies that are short on plot intricacies but long on gimmick and explosives, too much is given away in the trailer." The film however, was not without its supporters. William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, believed the film was "flat-out one of the more exciting and original gut-busters that Hollywood has produced in many a month. It's virtually all action, but the action is never mindless and it is full of marvelous surprises every step of the way." Richard Corliss
of TIME
commented that "Vantage Point scored with surprisingly robustness at the wickets, outperforming the predictions of industry analysts and seeming likely to be the weekend's No. 1 attraction." He noted the film is "best seen as straightforward, sometimes harrowing melodrama, packed with mistaken identities, beautiful villains, a kindly tourist who can outrace the bad guys, and a lost little girl whom the film brazenly sends onto a highway full of speeding cars." David Denby
of The New Yorker
, added to the positive sentiment by saying "Vantage Point is something remarkable—the ultimate case, perhaps, of a movie as a big whirling machine. The writer, Barry L. Levy, and the director, Pete Travis, a Brit who made a TV movie about a bombing in Northern Ireland, may be taking their cues from genre fiction, but no one can say that they haven’t beautifully mapped out their turf as a grid of charged vectors."
Writing for The Boston Globe
, Ty Burr
bluntly noted that the "rewind/retell gambit quickly grows tiresome - we're groaning by the fourth narrative reboot - and, anyway, the device isn't used to question the nature of truth (as it was in 'Rashomon' ) but to slowly reveal a nefarious terrorist conspiracy to ... but I can say no more." He thought the end result of the film was "both clever and stupid - an interesting feat." In a mixed review, James Berardinelli
writing for ReelViews, called the film a "fast-paced motion picture that fails the 'reality test' but maintains a certain intensity for its entire running length. It's entertaining in the same way that an episode of 24 is entertaining, but without the lead character shouting 'dammit!' every five minutes." Describing an unfavorable opinion, Scott Foundas of The Village Voice
said the film encompassed "multiple perspectives" that "are all foreplay, it turns out, for an orgiastic third-act car chase during which the movie's story threads converge in a way that makes Paul Haggis seem like a master of Balzacian realism." Foundas ended his review noting "nothing in Vantage Point quickens the pulse as much as the realization that, with each successive turn of the wheel, we come one step closer to the end."
John Anderson of The Washington Post
, stated that there were "many places one could lay blame for "Vantage Point." One would be the late Akira Kurosawa, whose original movie version of 'Rashomon' made it chic for filmmakers to create multiple-perspective movies and, since they aren't Kurosawa, drive us crazy." He ultimately came to the conclusion that "no amount of ripening time was going to help this gimmicky and ultimately harebrained movie." Similarly, Justin Chang wrote in Variety
that the film circles "endlessly around a political assassination attempt and its violently contrived aftermath, the film proves every bit as crude, nerve-grinding and finally unsalvageable as the car accidents it keeps inflicting on its characters." He did however note, the original holdover slated release for the film in 2007 by Sony
was "unlikely to stop traffic around multiplexes despite its attention-getting cast, especially when poor word of mouth takes hold." However, in a more upbeat tone, Owen Gleiberman
writing for Entertainment Weekly
thought the film was "a pulse-pounding technological showman whose high-strung, quick-cut style might be described as JFK meets Paul Greengrass meets Jerry Bruckheimer. That said, it's not the plot that thickens — it's the pulp." He believed it had a "a gripping premise that, for a while, at least, is grippingly executed."
came in second place during that weekend grossing $13,100,192. The film's revenue dropped by 44% in its second week of release, earning $12,819,245. For that particular weekend, the film fell to 2nd place screening in 3,150 theaters. The film Semi-Pro
, unseated Vantage Point to open in first place grossing $15,075,114 in box office revenue. During its final week in release, Vantage Point opened in a distant 25th place with $234,042 in revenue. The film went on to top out domestically at $72,266,306 in total ticket sales through a 9-week theatrical run. Internationally, the film took in an additional $78,895,185 in box office business for a combined worldwide total of $151,161,491. For 2008 as a whole, the film would cumulatively rank at a box office performance position of 43.
Political cinema
Political cinema in the narrow sense of the term is a cinema which portrays current or historical events or social conditions in a partisan way in order to inform or to agitate the spectator...
action thriller film directed by Pete Travis
Pete Travis
Pete Travis is an English television and film director. His work includes Cold Feet , The Jury and Omagh for television, and Vantage Point and Endgame for cinema...
. It was adapted from a screenplay written by Barry L. Levy
Barry Levy
Barry Louis Levy is an American screenwriter best known as the writer of the 2008 film Vantage Point.-Career:Despite studying history and psychology at Washington University in St...
. The story focuses on an assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
attempt on the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
as seen from a different set of vantage points through the eyes of eight strangers. Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...
, Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox (actor)
Matthew Chandler Fox is an American actor. He is mostly known for his role as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five, and for portraying Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series Lost.- Early life :...
, Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
, William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
, and Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
star in principal roles. The film is often compared, unfavorably, to Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
's Rashomon
Rashomon
Rashomon may refer to:* Rashōmon, the former main city gate in two Japanese capital cities, Heijokyō and Heiankyō * Rashōmon , a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa first published in 1915...
, which also employed the telling of a story through multiple perspectives, but in order to question the possibility of "truth". Unlike the Rashomon effect
Rashomon effect
The Rashomon effect is the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it. A useful demonstration of this principle in scientific understanding can be found in an article by...
, Vantage Point recounts a series of events which are re-enacted from several different perspectives and viewpoints in order to reveal a "truthful" account of what happened. Vantage Point explores kidnapping, assassination and terrorism.
The motion picture was a co-production between the film studios of Relativity Media, Original Film, and Art In Motion. It was commercially distributed by Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
theatrically, and by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is the home video distribution arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation. It was established in November 1979 as Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment, releasing 20 titles: The Anderson Tapes, Bell, Book and Candle, Born Free, Breakout,...
in home media format. The film project began principal photography in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
on June 18, 2006. Executive producers for the film comprised, Callum Greene, Tania Landau, and Lynwood Spinks. On February 26, 2008, the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released by the Varese Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
label. The film score was composed by musician Atli Örvarsson
Atli Örvarsson
Atli Örvarsson is an Icelandic film score composer. He is a member of Hans Zimmer's production company Remote Control Productions.- Filmography :-External links:*...
.
Following its premiere on February 22, 2008, Vantage Point grossed $72,266,306 in domestic ticket receipts. The film was screened at 3,163 theaters during its widest release nationwide in the United States. It earned an additional $78,895,185 in business through international release to top out at a combined $151,161,491 in gross revenue. The film was technically considered a strong financial success due to its $40 million budget costs. Preceding its theatrical run though, the film was generally met with negative critical reviews. The widescreen DVD and high-definition Blu-ray Disc editions of the film featuring the director's audio commentary and interviews with the cast and crew, were both released in the United States on July 8, 2008.
Plot
U.S. President Henry Ashton (William HurtWilliam Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
) attends a political summit in Salamanca, Spain to promote an international treaty. Displayed with eight differing viewpoints, an assassination attempt on the president occurs, relayed in a time span of 23 minutes. Each time the events unfold from the beginning, a new vantage point is shown revealing additional details, which ultimately completes the story of what actually took place during the incident.
From the first vantage point, GNN producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
), directs various media personnel from a mobile television studio as the president arrives at the gathering. Mayor De Soto (Jose Carlos Rodriguez) delivers a short speech and then introduces the president, who is shot twice as he greets the crowd from the podium. An explosion outside the plaza soon follows. Moments later, the podium itself is destroyed by a secondary explosion, killing and injuring numerous people. As the smoke clears, GNN reporter Angie Jones (Zoe Saldana
Zoe Saldana
Zoe Saldana , sometimes stylized Zoë Saldaña, is an American actress. She had her breakthrough role in the 2000 film Center Stage and later gained prominence for her roles as Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek, and a starring role...
) is seen lying dead in the rubble.
The second vantage point follows Secret Service agents Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...
) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox (actor)
Matthew Chandler Fox is an American actor. He is mostly known for his role as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five, and for portraying Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series Lost.- Early life :...
). Barnes notices a curtain fluttering in the window of a nearby building that was allegedly vacated. He also observes American tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
) filming the audience. After the president is shot, Barnes tackles a man rushing to the podium named Enrique (Eduardo Noriega
Eduardo Noriega (Spanish actor)
Eduardo Noriega Gómez is a Spanish film actor, perhaps best known for his roles in two Alejandro Amenábar films, the multiple Goya Award-winning Tesis and Open Your Eyes . He also starred in The Wolf...
). Taylor pursues a lead to a potential assassin. Following the second explosion, Barnes barges into the GNN production studio and asks to view their footage. He calls Taylor, who reports the direction of the suspected assassin's escape route. Barnes then views an image on one of the camera's live feeds that startles him and prompts him to run out.
In the third vantage point, Enrique, who claims to be a Spanish police officer assigned to protecting the mayor of Salamanca, sees his girlfriend Veronica (Ayelet Zurer
Ayelet Zurer
Ayelet Zorer is an Israeli actress, perhaps best known for her roles in Nina’s Tragedies, Adam Resurrected, Munich, and Angels & Demons....
), being embraced by a stranger and overhears them speaking about meeting under an overpass. When he confronts her, Veronica assures Enrique of her love for him as he hands her a bag. When the president is shot, Enrique rushes onto the stage to protect the mayor, but is tackled by Barnes. While being detained, he witnesses Veronica toss the bag he gave her under the podium, causing the second explosion. Enrique escapes as the agents who previously had him in custody, mount a chase while firing shots in his direction, failing to subdue him. Enrique confronts an unseen individual at the overpass and asks if he is surprised to see him still alive.
The fourth vantage point revolves around Howard Lewis who is chatting with a man called Sam (Said Taghmaoui
Saïd Taghmaoui
Saïd Taghmaoui is a French actor and screenwriter. One of his defining screen roles was that of Saïd in the award winning 1995 French film La Haine directed by Mathieu Kassovitz...
), while a little girl named Anna (Alicia Zapien), bumps into him and drops her ice cream. Later, Lewis notices Barnes looking at the curtain fluttering in the window of a nearby building, and captures the footage with his camcorder. Following the second explosion at the podium, Lewis chases Enrique and the pursuing Secret Service agents. At the overpass, Lewis views the pair of agents from afar shooting in the direction of Enrique as he greets an individual in a police uniform under the overpass. Seriously wounded, Enrique falls to the ground. Lewis sees Anna who had earlier become separated from her mother, trying to cross a busy intersection. An ambulance races down the road about to hit Anna, as Lewis runs out to save her.
The fifth vantage point begins as President Ashton, having been informed of a credible assassination threat, has returned to his hotel room with his aides while his body double proceeds to the gathering in the plaza. The first explosion, which occurs just outside the hotel, is revealed to be a device detonated by a suicide bomber disguised as a bellhop. Seconds later, a masked assailant bursts into the president's room, shoots his advisers and then proceeds in abducting Ashton.
By the sixth vantage point, terrorist Suarez, previously seen as Sam; shoots Ashton's body double using a remote-controlled automatic rifle placed in an adjacent window next to the one with the fluttering curtain that had drawn Barnes' attention earlier. The rifle is retrieved by Taylor, whom Barnes sees leaving the scene wearing a Spanish policeman's uniform on one of the GNN live feeds, even though he tells Barnes that he's in pursuit of the assassin over the phone. Barnes realizes Taylor is actually part of the terror plot. The man Enrique saw embracing Veronica is revealed to be sharpshooter Javier (Edgar Ramirez
Edgar Ramirez
Édgar Filiberto Ramírez Arellano is a Venezuelan actor. He played Carlos in the 2010 French-German biopic series Carlos, a role for which he won the César Award for Most Promising Actor at the César Awards 2011. He also played "Paz", a CIA assassin in the movie The Bourne Ultimatum.Ramírez...
), whose brother is being held hostage to ensure Javier's cooperation with the terrorists. Javier kills the guards and aides within the hotel, and kidnaps the president. Ashton is later placed in an ambulance with Suarez and Veronica disguised as medics. Javier joins Taylor in a police car to a planned rendezvous at the overpass. Barnes commandeers a car and chases Taylor and Javier. Barnes however, gets into a collision with a truck, allowing the duo to escape. At the overpass, Enrique, who did not die in the blast at the podium as intended, confronts Javier and Taylor. Enraged, Javier shoots Enrique, mistakenly believing he had knowledge of his kidnapped brother's whereabouts. Javier is then shot and killed by Taylor when he demands to be brought to his brother, who had been killed earlier by Suarez. Enrique dies of his wounds as Barnes reaches the scene on foot firing several rounds at Taylor, who attempts to flee. After crashing his car, a critically injured Taylor is dragged out by Barnes. He orders Taylor to reveal where the president has been taken, but Taylor dies. Meanwhile, Ashton regains consciousness in the ambulance and attacks Veronica, distracting her and Suarez just as Anna runs into their path. Suarez swerves causing the ambulance to flip over just as Lewis pulls Anna out of its way. Barnes runs to the ambulance where he sees Veronica lying dead. He shoots Suarez dead and rescues the president.
Cast
- Dennis QuaidDennis QuaidDennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...
as Agent Thomas Barnes - William HurtWilliam HurtWilliam McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
as President Ashton - Matthew FoxMatthew FoxMatthew Fox is an American actor.Matthew Fox may also refer to:* Matt Fox , American songwriter and producer a.k.a...
as Agent Kent Taylor - Forrest Whitaker as Howard Lewis
- Sigourney WeaverSigourney WeaverSigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
as Rex Brookes - Édgar RamírezEdgar RamirezÉdgar Filiberto Ramírez Arellano is a Venezuelan actor. He played Carlos in the 2010 French-German biopic series Carlos, a role for which he won the César Award for Most Promising Actor at the César Awards 2011. He also played "Paz", a CIA assassin in the movie The Bourne Ultimatum.Ramírez...
as Javier - Ayelet ZurerAyelet ZurerAyelet Zorer is an Israeli actress, perhaps best known for her roles in Nina’s Tragedies, Adam Resurrected, Munich, and Angels & Demons....
as Veronica - Richard T. JonesRichard T. JonesRichard Timothy Jones is an American film and television actor.Jones was born in Kobe, Japan and raised in Carson, California. He is the son of Lorene, a computer analyst, and Clarence Jones, a professional baseball player and the hitting instructor for the Cleveland Indians. He also has an older...
as Agent Holden - Bruce McGillBruce McGillBruce Travis McGill is an American actor who has an extensive list of credits in film and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Jack Dalton on the television series MacGyver and as Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day in National Lampoon's Animal House.-Early life:McGill was born in San...
as Phil McCullough - Saïd TaghmaouiSaïd TaghmaouiSaïd Taghmaoui is a French actor and screenwriter. One of his defining screen roles was that of Saïd in the award winning 1995 French film La Haine directed by Mathieu Kassovitz...
as Suarez - Zoe SaldanaZoe SaldanaZoe Saldana , sometimes stylized Zoë Saldaña, is an American actress. She had her breakthrough role in the 2000 film Center Stage and later gained prominence for her roles as Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek, and a starring role...
as Angie Jones - Holt McCallanyHolt McCallanyHolt McCallany is an Irish American actor, writer, and producer working primarily in film and television.-Early life:...
as Agent Ron Matthews - Leonardo NamLeonardo NamLeonardo Nam is an Argentine-born Australian actor of Korean descent.-Early life:Nam was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At the age of 6, he moved to Sydney, Australia. Nam attended Sydney Technical High School and studied architecture at the University of New South Wales. Nam left Sydney to...
as Kevin Cross - James LeGrosJames LeGrosJames LeGros is an American film and television actor. He is known as a star of independent films with a diversified body of work in the early to mid 1990s.-Personal life:...
as Ted Heinkin - Shelby Fenner as Grace Riggs
- Guillermo Ivan as Filipe
- Dolores HerediaDolores HerediaDolores Heredia is a Mexican actress.She was born and grew up in La Paz. She's the seventh of ten children. Her mother was a photographer from Sinaloa and her father was a seaman from Guanajuato...
as Maria - Alicia Zapeen as Anna
- Xavier MassimiXavier MassimiXavier Massimi is a Mexican actor. He first acting role was as Bruno in the film La primera noche.-Filmography:* Machos TV Series .... Adolfo Mercader* La Heredera TV Series .......
as Miguel - Jose Carlos Rodriguez as Mayor
Filming
In the original script, Rex Brooks was a male and Howard Lewis was an overweight Eastern EuropeEastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an. In Plotting an Assassination, a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, director Pete Travis explained how he felt there were so few strong female characters in the film, that he decided to cast Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
as the GNN producer. When Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
expressed interest in participating in the project, Travis welcomed the chance to work with him by Americanizing the character of Howard.
Originally scheduled for a 2007 release by Sony, the film began principal photography on June 18, 2006 in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. Locations included the Casa de los Azulejos
Casa de los Azulejos, Mexico City
The Casa de los Azulejos or "House of Tiles" is an 18th century palace in Mexico City, built by the Count del Valle de Orizaba family. What makes this palace, in the City of Palaces, distinctive is that its facade on three sides is completely covered in the expensive blue and white tile of Puebla...
. Director Travis discussed the difficulties the cast and crew faced each day as they tried to film during the height of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
's rainy season. He credited cinematographer Amir Mokri
Amir Mokri
Amir M. Mokri is an Iranian cinematographer.Mokri was born in Iran and emigrated to the United States in 1977. He graduated from Emerson College and the American Film Institute.-Filmography:* A Hero of Our Time * All You Can Dream...
and the lighting crew for making it look like the twenty-minute segment portrayed in the film unfolded under clear and sunny skies when in fact it frequently was overcast and drizzling during filming. In addition to the Mexico City locations, some exteriors were shot in Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. It was established at the archeological site of Gualupita I by the Olmec, "the mother culture" of Mesoamerica, approximately 3200 years ago...
, Casa de los Azulejos
Casa de los Azulejos, Mexico City
The Casa de los Azulejos or "House of Tiles" is an 18th century palace in Mexico City, built by the Count del Valle de Orizaba family. What makes this palace, in the City of Palaces, distinctive is that its facade on three sides is completely covered in the expensive blue and white tile of Puebla...
and Puebla
Puebla, Puebla
The city and municipality of Puebla is the capital of the state of Puebla, and one of the five most important colonial cities in Mexico. Being a planned city, it is located to the east of Mexico City and west of Mexico's main port, Veracruz, on the main route between the two.The city was founded...
.
During filming, the crew worked with decorated U.S. Army veteran Ron Blecker, in order to help the lead actors prepare themselves to play Secret Service agents. Describing his experience, Quaid commented "We were there for two weeks before we started shooting. We trained as a team, as a Secret Service unit, of these guys. The president never goes anywhere that it's not choreographed well in advance. That’s what we would do". One of the difficult elements of the filming were the car chase scenes. Quaid admitted, "Except for the actual 40-mile-an-hour crashes" he did most of the driving sequences himself. On the dynamics of the storyline, Quaid mentioned "When I read a script, it’s the only time I get to be an audience member. It’s the first time I experience something. It really read so well that I felt if they could just put this on screen, it was going to work. Pete not only did that, but he really elevated it as well, in the way that he shot it." Regarding the multiple performances of the same event, Quaid explained "I just played it the same way the entire time," He went further adding "because it’s from another person’s point-of-view, then the audience has a different perception - even though I’m doing the same thing. You get to see this 15 minutes, then the next time you shoot that same 15 minutes, you might catch a different angle of that character that you couldn’t see before ... what that character was thinking. You see them go around the corner and what really happened, from what they said. It’s what is interesting and what is so exciting about this movie."
Actor Matthew Fox explained how the series of events filmed a number of times, presented its difficulties. He said that "Just on a technical basis, film can be a very tedious process," but added, "when you get into a situation where you're going to tell the same events through eight different perspectives, it becomes like eight times as tedious. You're doing these sequences over and over and over again." Working with the director, Fox felt "That was the real fun thing for Pete Travis and I to do together. I loved working with him and he's a real actor's director in that he gets right in there with you. He's thinking about the character from the point of view of the character." Fox believed his training for his part was instrumental in achieving the desired effect. He commented "It was always very important to [director Pete Travis] that we pull off the logistics of what we were doing as Secret Service agents and as that whole team, that the real physical elements of it, where guns are carried, how voice things are used, the structure of getting in and out of cars, that was accurate. We did have consultants". In complimenting his co-actors, Fox viewed them as being inspirational; "Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt ... I mean, I was just very happy to be working in the same movie as all three of them as a huge fan. I respect their work a great deal." Fox summed up his experience in the film by exclaiming "This movie and the concept of perspective is something that the idea that one event can be perceived so differently by two different people depending on where they're standing, who they are and how they want to perceive it, if they have an agenda to perceive it a certain way, is something I think about all the time in my life, in my own individual microworld in relationships that I have."
Soundtrack
The original motion picture soundtrack for Vantage Point, was released by the Varese SarabandeVarèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
music label on February 26, 2008. The score for the film was orchestrated by Atli Örvarsson
Atli Örvarsson
Atli Örvarsson is an Icelandic film score composer. He is a member of Hans Zimmer's production company Remote Control Productions.- Filmography :-External links:*...
and mixed by Alan Meyerson. Dina Eaton edited the film's music.
Theatrical run
The film had its world premiere in Spain on February 28, 2008. The next day on February 29, it premiered in ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Other European markets in Portugal and Croatia had the film premiering on April 3. It went into general theatrical release in the U.S., Canada and Mexico on February 22. Certain Asian-Pacific markets; Australia and New Zealand saw the premiere of the film on March 13, while in Malaysia it screened the following day on March 14.
Home media
Following its cinematic release in theaters, the Region 1 CodeDVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
edition of the film was released on DVD
DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...
in the United States on July 1, 2008. Special features for the DVD include; Surveillance Tapes: Outakes, Interviews with the Cast and Crew titled An Inside Perspective, Plotting an Assassination feature, Coordinating Chaos stunt featurette, and the director's commentary. Additionally, a two-disc Special Edition DVD was also released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is the home video distribution arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation. It was established in November 1979 as Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment, releasing 20 titles: The Anderson Tapes, Bell, Book and Candle, Born Free, Breakout,...
on July 1, 2008. Viewers have the option of seeing the film in either anamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen, when applied to DVD manufacture, is a video process that horizontally squeezes a widescreen image so that it can be stored in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio DVD image frame. Compatible playback equipment can then re-expand the horizontal dimension to show the original widescreen...
or fullscreen
Pan and scan
Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects...
formats. Special features include; Surveillance Tapes: Outakes, Interviews with the Cast and Crew titled An Inside Perspective, Plotting an Assassination feature, Coordinating Chaos stunt featurette, the director's commentary, and a Digital Copy of the film that can be downloaded to a PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
with a DVD-ROM option, or a Sony PSP
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
.
The widescreen hi-definition Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
version of the film was released on July 1, 2008. Special features include; Surveillance Tapes: Outakes, Interviews with the Cast and Crew titled An Inside Perspective, Plotting an Assassination feature, Coordinating Chaos stunt featurette, and the director's commentary. The disc also includes an exclusive Vantage Viewer feature, allowing for a tracking movement of each character's location and vantage point throughout the film. A UMD
Universal Media Disc
The Universal Media Disc is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on their PlayStation Portable handheld gaming and multimedia platform...
version of the film for the Sony Playstation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
was released on July 1, 2008. The disc features dubbed, subtitled, and color widescreen format viewing options. A supplemental viewing option for the film in the media format of Video on demand
Video on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
is available as well.
Critical response
Among mainstream critics in the U.S., the film received mostly negative reviews. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 34% of 149 sampled critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 5.0 out of 10. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a weighted average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
out of 100 to critics' reviews, the film received a score of 40 based on 32 reviews. Following its cinematic release in 2008, Vantage Point won the Golden Trailer Award
Golden Trailer Awards
The Golden Trailer Awards is an annual awards show that honors achievements in motion picture marketing, including film trailers, posters and television advertisements.- Overview :...
for Best Thriller. It also garnered a nomination from the Taurus World Stunt Awards
Taurus World Stunt Awards
The Taurus World Stunt Awards is a yearly award ceremony that honors stunt performers in movies. It is held each year in Los Angeles.- Categories :*Best Fight*Best Fire Stunt*Best High Work*Best Work with a Vehicle*Best Overall Stunt by a Stunt Woman...
in the category of Best Work With A Vehicle in 2009.
| " 'Vantage Point' is at its best in the early going when it focuses on the Secret Service agent, whom Quaid plays with the intensity of a man trying to blast through doubt and fear by staying very, very angry. Quaid is so good that his performance ends up promising what the script can't deliver - a blazing portrait of an American professional, the sunburned man of action, whose inner torment can't stop him." |
| —Mick LaSalle, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle |
Jim Lane, writing in the Sacramento News & Review, said in outward negativity, "It all winds up—or dribbles down—to yet another chase through crowded streets in commandeered cars, with an ending meant to be ironic but simply providing a crowning howler to all the Rube Goldberg nonsense." He emphatically believed, "with all the repetition and a modest 90-minute running time, they run out of ideas before they run out of film." Left unimpressed, Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, wrote that the film "has a fractured and frustrating narrative." Unlike Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
's classic film Rashomon
Rashomon
Rashomon may refer to:* Rashōmon, the former main city gate in two Japanese capital cities, Heijokyō and Heiankyō * Rashōmon , a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa first published in 1915...
, which is structured around multiple retellings of the same event, LaSalle characterizes Vantage Point as "fairly pedestrian, and nothing special is gained from all the stopping and restarting. The title is the tip-off. Aside from the changing-perspectives device, Vantage Point has nothing going on. There's no artistic, philosophical or even jolly entertainment reason for adopting this strategy. It's just arbitrary, a gimmick." Claudia Puig of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, said the "various viewpoints don't quite link up. And they all employ the same rewind technique once unspooled. Stylistically, this laying out of the facts then speedily going back over them in reverse seems initially intriguing, but it gets old after about the fifth time." She even believed that like "many action-adventure movies that are short on plot intricacies but long on gimmick and explosives, too much is given away in the trailer." The film however, was not without its supporters. William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
, believed the film was "flat-out one of the more exciting and original gut-busters that Hollywood has produced in many a month. It's virtually all action, but the action is never mindless and it is full of marvelous surprises every step of the way." Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
of TIME
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
commented that "Vantage Point scored with surprisingly robustness at the wickets, outperforming the predictions of industry analysts and seeming likely to be the weekend's No. 1 attraction." He noted the film is "best seen as straightforward, sometimes harrowing melodrama, packed with mistaken identities, beautiful villains, a kindly tourist who can outrace the bad guys, and a lost little girl whom the film brazenly sends onto a highway full of speeding cars." David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, added to the positive sentiment by saying "Vantage Point is something remarkable—the ultimate case, perhaps, of a movie as a big whirling machine. The writer, Barry L. Levy, and the director, Pete Travis, a Brit who made a TV movie about a bombing in Northern Ireland, may be taking their cues from genre fiction, but no one can say that they haven’t beautifully mapped out their turf as a grid of charged vectors."
Writing for The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Ty Burr has been a film critic for the Boston Globe since 2002 where he reviews films alongside Wesley Morris.Born in 1957, he studied film at Dartmouth College and New York University and has written three books: The Hundred Greatest Movies of All Time, The Hundred Greatest Stars of All Time and...
bluntly noted that the "rewind/retell gambit quickly grows tiresome - we're groaning by the fourth narrative reboot - and, anyway, the device isn't used to question the nature of truth (as it was in 'Rashomon' ) but to slowly reveal a nefarious terrorist conspiracy to ... but I can say no more." He thought the end result of the film was "both clever and stupid - an interesting feat." In a mixed review, James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
writing for ReelViews, called the film a "fast-paced motion picture that fails the 'reality test' but maintains a certain intensity for its entire running length. It's entertaining in the same way that an episode of 24 is entertaining, but without the lead character shouting 'dammit!' every five minutes." Describing an unfavorable opinion, Scott Foundas of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
said the film encompassed "multiple perspectives" that "are all foreplay, it turns out, for an orgiastic third-act car chase during which the movie's story threads converge in a way that makes Paul Haggis seem like a master of Balzacian realism." Foundas ended his review noting "nothing in Vantage Point quickens the pulse as much as the realization that, with each successive turn of the wheel, we come one step closer to the end."
| "With each of the perspectives, the story is skillfully and enticingly enhanced, and then the movie segues into an epic - and wonderfully complex - chase sequence that cuts between all the participants (and picks a few new ones in the process) as it rushes to an explosive conclusion." |
| —William Arnold, writing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
John Anderson of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, stated that there were "many places one could lay blame for "Vantage Point." One would be the late Akira Kurosawa, whose original movie version of 'Rashomon' made it chic for filmmakers to create multiple-perspective movies and, since they aren't Kurosawa, drive us crazy." He ultimately came to the conclusion that "no amount of ripening time was going to help this gimmicky and ultimately harebrained movie." Similarly, Justin Chang wrote in Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
that the film circles "endlessly around a political assassination attempt and its violently contrived aftermath, the film proves every bit as crude, nerve-grinding and finally unsalvageable as the car accidents it keeps inflicting on its characters." He did however note, the original holdover slated release for the film in 2007 by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
was "unlikely to stop traffic around multiplexes despite its attention-getting cast, especially when poor word of mouth takes hold." However, in a more upbeat tone, Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
writing for Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
thought the film was "a pulse-pounding technological showman whose high-strung, quick-cut style might be described as JFK meets Paul Greengrass meets Jerry Bruckheimer. That said, it's not the plot that thickens — it's the pulp." He believed it had a "a gripping premise that, for a while, at least, is grippingly executed."
Box office
The film premiered in cinemas on February 22, 2008 in wide release throughout the U.S.. During its opening weekend, the film opened in 1st place grossing $22,874,936 in business showing at 3,149 locations. The film, The Spiderwick ChroniclesThe Spiderwick Chronicles (film)
The Spiderwick Chronicles is a 2008 fantasy film adaptation of Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi's bestselling series of the same name. Set in the Spiderwick Estate in New England, United States, it follows the adventures of Jared Grace and his family as they discover a field guide to faeries, battle...
came in second place during that weekend grossing $13,100,192. The film's revenue dropped by 44% in its second week of release, earning $12,819,245. For that particular weekend, the film fell to 2nd place screening in 3,150 theaters. The film Semi-Pro
Semi-Pro
Semi-Pro is a 2008 American sports screwball comedy film from New Line Cinema. The film was directed by Kent Alterman and stars Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, André Benjamin and Maura Tierney. The film was shot in Los Angeles near Dodger Stadium , in Detroit and in Flint, Michigan...
, unseated Vantage Point to open in first place grossing $15,075,114 in box office revenue. During its final week in release, Vantage Point opened in a distant 25th place with $234,042 in revenue. The film went on to top out domestically at $72,266,306 in total ticket sales through a 9-week theatrical run. Internationally, the film took in an additional $78,895,185 in box office business for a combined worldwide total of $151,161,491. For 2008 as a whole, the film would cumulatively rank at a box office performance position of 43.
See also
- 2008 in film2008 in filmThis is a list of all major films made in 2008.-Highest-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2008...
- Political decoyPolitical decoyA political decoy is a person employed to impersonate a politician, in order to draw attention away from the real person or to take risks on their behalf...
- Assassinations in fictionAssassinations in fictionAssassinations have formed a major plot element in various works of fiction and have also attracted scholarly attention. In Assassinations and Murder in Modern Italy: Transformations in Society and Culture, Stephen Gundle and Lucia Rinaldi analyze modern Italian assassinations in their historical...