THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Vantage Point"
The Rain In Spain, In Plain Sight: A Film's
Misfire Heard And Seen Around The World (of Deception)
Forest Whitaker, Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox
in "Vantage Point", directed by Pete Travis. The film opened today across
the U.S. and Canada. (Photo: Daniel Daza/Sony Pictures)
By
Omar P.L. Moore/The
Popcorn Reel
February 22, 2008
"Vantage Point" completely misses the point
and the mark as Pete Travis over-directs and over-choreographs the
proceedings -- yet it all seems an optical illusion, as the film feels more
like a lazy exercise that tries too hard to emulate "Rashomon", the vintage
1951 film from the legendary Akira Kurosawa. Mr. Travis' film, told from
the points of view of eight different characters, for almost eighty minutes
shows eight ten-minute segments of the same event, the assassination of the
U.S. president Ashton (played by William Hurt.) Each segment ends with a
rewinding of the ten minutes that have just elapsed, followed by a new
segment. By the time that the third ten-minute segment begins, the film has
already become tedious.
The president is in Spain as an invited guest, amid surprise, surprise, a tidal wave of vigorous protest of his visit. "Vantage Point", like numerous films, exploits the political atmosphere of the day, using the specter of a post-9/11 atmosphere, and memories of the 2004 fatal bombings in Madrid to manufacture a heightened sense of tension that never arrives. None of the most pained expressions we see on Forest Whitaker's face effectuates the suspense that Mr. Travis works so arduously to achieve. Mr. Whitaker, very good in the overlooked "The Great Debaters" late last year, here plays Howard Lewis, a tourist on vacation in Spain to escape from his strained marriage. Mr. Whitaker's character showcases his Sony HDV video camera for this Sony Pictures release, and it is a sleek little object, which becomes a pivotal player in "Vantage Point". While cameras sometimes lie, it is evident that Mr. Travis has perpetuated a cinematic swindle that purports to be a clever deception, but instead is merely a film bereft of a credible script. Barry L. Levy wrote it.
Sigourney Weaver (also in "Be Kind Rewind" which also opens in the U.S. and Canada today) appears early on a news broadcast producer, who has a cliched verbal tangle with a news reporter (Zoe Saldana) on the scene in Spain prior to the president's arrival.
The ultimate "hero" in this frustrating film is Dennis Quaid, playing Thomas Barnes, a burned-out U.S. Secret Service agent who barely protected his commander-in-chief just eight months prior and remains traumatized by the event. Yet here he is, back in the saddle in Spain. He shouldn't be of course, but by the time "Vantage Point" is over Barnes has suddenly, in a matter of 20 miraculous (or misguided) minutes, shaken off the previous shock to his system that has haunted him for almost a year, and become a renewed action man, vigorous and unrestrained in his pursuit of the mystery bombers responsible for the carnage in Spain. Mr. Quaid's character's sudden resurrection is a tailor-made for Hollywood construct, a convenient device as a raison d'etre. (Think "Godfather Part III" construct: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!!") Mr. Quaid has previously played has-been character types looking to get one last shot at redemption and revitalization in the twilight of a career, in such films as "Any Given Sunday" and "The Rookie", and both were sports-themed films, infinitely better motion pictures than "Vantage Point". The final scene of Mr. Travis' film between Mr. Quaid and another important character is hokey and half-baked, and the dialogue is dreadful. Dreadful enough to be laughable. The sad thing is, "Vantage Point" isn't being played for laughs.
So it's Popcorn Reel official, at least: "Vantage Point" has now supplanted "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" as the year's worst film so far. (And it's still February.) At least "Roscoe Jenkins" was a comedy, so as bad as it was, you couldn't take it that seriously, beyond some of the more obsequious events in it. But "Vantage Point" makes comedy in moments that it intends to be authentic. The film is supposed to be serious, but it seriously insults the intelligence of its audience.
The president is in Spain as an invited guest, amid surprise, surprise, a tidal wave of vigorous protest of his visit. "Vantage Point", like numerous films, exploits the political atmosphere of the day, using the specter of a post-9/11 atmosphere, and memories of the 2004 fatal bombings in Madrid to manufacture a heightened sense of tension that never arrives. None of the most pained expressions we see on Forest Whitaker's face effectuates the suspense that Mr. Travis works so arduously to achieve. Mr. Whitaker, very good in the overlooked "The Great Debaters" late last year, here plays Howard Lewis, a tourist on vacation in Spain to escape from his strained marriage. Mr. Whitaker's character showcases his Sony HDV video camera for this Sony Pictures release, and it is a sleek little object, which becomes a pivotal player in "Vantage Point". While cameras sometimes lie, it is evident that Mr. Travis has perpetuated a cinematic swindle that purports to be a clever deception, but instead is merely a film bereft of a credible script. Barry L. Levy wrote it.
Sigourney Weaver (also in "Be Kind Rewind" which also opens in the U.S. and Canada today) appears early on a news broadcast producer, who has a cliched verbal tangle with a news reporter (Zoe Saldana) on the scene in Spain prior to the president's arrival.
The ultimate "hero" in this frustrating film is Dennis Quaid, playing Thomas Barnes, a burned-out U.S. Secret Service agent who barely protected his commander-in-chief just eight months prior and remains traumatized by the event. Yet here he is, back in the saddle in Spain. He shouldn't be of course, but by the time "Vantage Point" is over Barnes has suddenly, in a matter of 20 miraculous (or misguided) minutes, shaken off the previous shock to his system that has haunted him for almost a year, and become a renewed action man, vigorous and unrestrained in his pursuit of the mystery bombers responsible for the carnage in Spain. Mr. Quaid's character's sudden resurrection is a tailor-made for Hollywood construct, a convenient device as a raison d'etre. (Think "Godfather Part III" construct: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!!") Mr. Quaid has previously played has-been character types looking to get one last shot at redemption and revitalization in the twilight of a career, in such films as "Any Given Sunday" and "The Rookie", and both were sports-themed films, infinitely better motion pictures than "Vantage Point". The final scene of Mr. Travis' film between Mr. Quaid and another important character is hokey and half-baked, and the dialogue is dreadful. Dreadful enough to be laughable. The sad thing is, "Vantage Point" isn't being played for laughs.
So it's Popcorn Reel official, at least: "Vantage Point" has now supplanted "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" as the year's worst film so far. (And it's still February.) At least "Roscoe Jenkins" was a comedy, so as bad as it was, you couldn't take it that seriously, beyond some of the more obsequious events in it. But "Vantage Point" makes comedy in moments that it intends to be authentic. The film is supposed to be serious, but it seriously insults the intelligence of its audience.
Matthew Fox plays Kent Taylor, a young Secret
Service colleague of Barnes and is always looking to protect his senior
agent. Mr. Fox's character Taylor is an odd entity in the film as Taylor,
and there are more than a few unexplained occurrences surrounding him and
several others. Either Mr. Travis is an ambitious filmmaker, or he
challenges us to ask something asked of a Simi Valley, California jury by
the LAPD officers' defense attorneys in the Rodney King beating criminal
trial in 1992, "do you believe your lying eyes?"
"Vantage Point" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for sequences of intense violence and action, some disturbing images and brief strong language. The film's duration is one hour and 30 minutes.
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2008. All Rights Reserved.
"Vantage Point" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for sequences of intense violence and action, some disturbing images and brief strong language. The film's duration is one hour and 30 minutes.
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2008. All Rights Reserved.