The Daily Gamecock

Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: The Mix

Media Credit: Special to The Daily Gamecock The plot of "Vantage Point" is told through the points of view of eight different people witnessing the same event.

Most first attempts are marked by flops. Despite the whiny remarks of snooty critics, director Pete Travis and writer Barry Levy of "Vantage Point" - both first-timers to the big screen - have created an intriguing, unique action thriller that does not subscribe to the typical plot. Grossing over $7.8 million as No. 1 at the box office its opening weekend, the film walks the high-art, low-art line.

The premise for the film is a global terror summit held in Salamanca, Spain, which becomes the target of a terrorist plot during which the United States' president is shot and several bombs are detonated.

The movie separates itself from the pack of archetypal shoot-'em-up action flicks by not only addressing a very current and touchy subject, but in the method of recounting the tale which is intertwined with the plot.

The gimmick is in the title and the tagline: "8 strangers. 8 points of view. One truth." But it is not obnoxious or monotonous, as one would expect. The tale begins with the take of the news reporters, cycling through the points of view of paranoid Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), a Spanish undercover police officer (Eduardo Noriega), a clueless American tourist (Forest Whitaker), mysterious Secret Service Agent Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox), President Ashton (William Hurt) and finally the terrorists.

Each "act" of the film restarts the sequence of events and, although many in the audience initially groan at the prospect of seeing the same thing twice or more, each take leads further into the story as well as challenges what has already been presented as fact with new background details.

Mixed and frantic camera angles, some courtesy of Forest Whitaker's character who feels the call of a strange duty to film the events and run toward danger and a na'veté that in reality would make him a great pickpocket mark, really add to the feeling of panic, much like the flashback montages.

Watching thousands of people tear through the streets, as if chased by bulls in Pamplona, really helps sell the actors' portrayal of the impending sense of doom linked with terrorism.

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