ZEE'S REVIEWS

19th May 2008
Vantage Point (2007)

I've never seen Rashomon, but I'm a huge fan of the film technique it inspired--the multiple viewpoint narrative, with differing perspectives on the same event. It can be used to brilliant effect, for irony, suspense, humour, or revelation. Vantage Point attempts to harness this technique but fails to take full advantage of it, resulting in an awkward hybrid that is neither a good Rashomon-style movie nor a good conventional movie.

Vantage Point centres on the shooting of the American president during an international summit in Spain, and the unravelling of the truth behind this event through the viewpoints of half a dozen different characters: a reporter, a secret service agent, a police officer, a tourist, the president, and the terrorists themselves.

The first twenty minutes is incredibly suspenseful and dramatic. Subsequent iterations, unfortunately, become less so; new information is revealed each time, but not enough to be worth the repetition. And while each of the characters does indeed witness the shooting from a different vantage point, their views of the physical events are largely identical. There is none of the subjectivity--none of the conflicting accounts--that lie at the heart of the Rashomon-style narrative, which makes me think the filmmakers have missed the point. In fact, Vantage Point could easily have been made as a conventional movie instead.

But even as a conventional movie, Vantage Point falls short of expectations. The motivation of the terrorists is never made clear; the climax is a contrived deus ex machina; and there is a great deal of action and spectacle but little in the way of emotional stakes. At best, it's a love song to the bond between the American president and the loyal secret service agent who will stop at nothing to save him, but even so, this was not a relationship I was particularly invested in.

Vantage Point is not a movie likely to linger in your mind beyond the cinema doors. It may even induce the same sigh of resignation that ran through the audience I was with each time the clock reset and we were forced to sit through yet another vantage point.