Vantage Point (2008)

A Real Stretch, But Entertaining

Well, I doubt anyone will fall asleep watching this film. That's the best feature of this movie: it's very entertaining and once you start it, it's tough to put down. Being only 90 minutes, it's a quick hour-and-a-half. It also helps to know that you are going to get the story told from a handful of angles, so expect to see similar scenes running over and over, each with a few new wrinkles added.

Also, expect a lot of the action scenes that are both fun to view but not very credible. My favorite - spoiler alert! - of that is when "Thomas Barne's" (Dennis Quaid) little blue car is totally bashed in by a huge 18-wheeler. Not only that, the car is smashed up against a brick wall. It should look like a metal pancake. Seconds later, Quaid emerges from the wreck and is running down the street like a football halfback shooting his pistol! He hardly has a scratch on him, and the limp disappears after about three strides!

Whatever, it's a fun ride not to be taken seriously but as a short entertainment diversion.The twists are fun to see, too, as the same-but-similar story slowly unwinds and all the pieces finally fall into place by the end.....even though, how they do manage that is by stretching things a bit! November 14, 2008

Be patient with this GREAT movie

This movie is different from all movies you've seen before.
It jumps around from each person's point of view,
if you stick with it, you will be greatly rewarded.
Great acting, great action, and "clean"

The plot was well thoughtout and Dennis Quaid and
the other actors did a wonderful job. November 12, 2008

Good not great!

I felt as if I was watching a poor mans version of Crash with most of the characters interconnecting in some way throughout only to all come together at the end. The Blu Ray was very good and I found the sound to be exceptional. The explosions could be felt throughout the house, only problem is that the same explosion happened eight times. The car chase reminded me of the Bourne movies and was very exciting. I do have one issue with the car chase and that is for a movie that attempts to be as realistiic as possible it is annoying to watch cars crash over and over again but still aquire no damage when seen from a distance. I might be nit picking but it is a pet peave of mine. Overall it is worth the watch! November 10, 2008

There's no point to it at all

I bought Vantage Point in a '3 DVDS for £15' sale at the supermarket. Always a bad sign, especially if a film's only been out a month or so... but I'm a sucker for a bargain, and anyway, the cast looked good.

Another giveaway for a 'stinker' is the running time. This one clocks in at only 80 minutes, suggesting it has been butchered by a despairing crew in the editing suite, who realised its flimsy one-dimensional story couldn't possibly stand up for any longer than this. Or even, indeed, that it collapsed on its weedy pencil-thin legs within 10 minutes and lay there floundering on its back like an irritating cockroach just waiting to be squished.

So.. just 80 minutes long. It gets a bonus star for not wasting too much of my life.

But then it loses three when you discover that the first 50 minutes of it is seeing the same sequence over and over again, from the viewpoints of different characters.

Quite why this was done, or what it added to the plot, is beyond me.
I thought there'd be some breathtaking double whammy at the end where, for example, they were all in it together, or that we had to piece together cleverly written clues in each segment to reveal the true shock-horror conspiracy behind the sequence of events, or something.

But no. That was way beyond the hyper young fools behind this project. What you see is a flat one-dimensional storyline, with a dull seen-it-all-before car chase tagged on it at the end. And, er, that's it.

None of the characters have any depth. They all do ludicrous out-of-character things at critical moments. The good guy who's really a bad guy is obvious from the moment you see him. And the plot is riddled with more holes than a bullet-riddled sieve.

But just why is it so bad? Have we any more clues on this DVD?

If you can bear it, I suggest you just watch a bit of the 'making of' extra on the DVD and reel back in open-mouthed horror and astonishment at the young stupid boys behind this project.

A director who looks about 20 years old with a wild 'kewpie doll' orange haircut.

A scriptwriter whose loving description of his masterpiece resembles that of a rather thick third-former trying to convince his teacher that his English essay isn't the crock of C-minus doggie-doo that everybody else in the class knows it is.

A shedload of other young 'creatives' all doing their jobs on the set, all indulging themselves in the most criminal waste of money since the banks collapsed on both sides of the Atlantic.

How in the name of God did these talentless berks get a multi-million pound budget to blow on their lamebrain schoolboy drivel?

The final indignity is to see the likes of Sigourney Weaver, who really should know better, sit there all breathless and wide-eyed and animated, desperately hyping it up as some sort of 'must-see thriller of the year', when they know and we know and anyone with an ounce of brain cells in his bonce know they are vamping up a pile of old bilgewater... and are only babbling in this crazy manner as part of their contractual duties to promote the film.

It's the best acting you'll see on this whole DVD. November 7, 2008

Gimmicky but exciting at the end.

While it repeats like a bad meal, Vantage Point is decently directed and the final sequence--although 110% predictable--is pretty damn exciting. This may be a stretch but I detected an underlying message about the value of human life, in the midst of all that chaos. November 1, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...