Movie Review: Vantage Point (2008, Pete Travis)

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Cast: Dennis Quaid, Mathew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Bruce McGill, Edgar Ramirez, Said Taghmaoui, Ayelet Zurer, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt
Screenplay: Barry Levy
90 minutes / Color

Peter Travis’ political thriller “Vantage Point” was probably the longest 90 minutes of my movie watching life from the part 4 years. Even “Gone with the Wind” rolled faster by. It was not intriguing, boring and not worthy my money. The bad acting and annoying screenplay were the biggest components which lead to “Vantage Point’s” downfall, especially from Oscar winner Forest Whitaker.

The story is simple (being that it repeats itself a billion times), it takes us on an adventure of 8 different people on the day of the assassination of a United States President in Spain. Some of the memorable characters include the New Caster’s Boss (Sigourney Weaver), the President’s ultimate body guard (Dennis Quaid), a American tourist (Forest Whitaker) and off course: our bad guys.

We are taken on the journey numerous times in different eyes. Though it DOES get old, we are put through finding out that the killed president was actually just a body double and the body guard would end up saving the real President from an attempted kidnap, because the killer’s knew they killed a body double. Get it?

I’m sorry, that’s my summary. I found the movie irrelevant and just terrible. I’m kind enough to give it a 2 star rating and I’m just lazy to actually summarize is perfectly. What I don’t understand that why so many good actors didn’t do well in this project.

Let me not forget to mention how predictable the whole feature was. It was so predictable that they turned a great concept into crap. It was extremely flawed, most especially the screenplay. The dialogue was horrible and it affected the acting of many greats.

Let me start with Dennis Quaid, he really needs to start making better movies. I don’t remember him for anything that good and I’m not surprised with his performance here, but I expected better.

Who I was completely annoyed with and surprise with was recent Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, who is fresh from his 2006 winning for “The Last King of Scotland”. He was phenomenal in that movie and that this is on his resume, he can very well know that he might be touched with the “Oscar Curse” (if there really is one). I hope not, he is very good actor.

To conclude all, I just have to say the movie was lame. I love political thrillers, I love difficult ones, but this one, as simple as it was, it was a big misfire – just like the terrorists attempt. I pray for these actors and this director who wasted their time on a bad movie, even though they had so much potential…a wasted budget.