Exciting but oftentimes reaching the point of absurdity, Vantage Point is like a mix of elements of 24 and Lost for the big screen. It features an all-star cast including Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Matthew Fox, and Forest Whitaker, and it mostly all takes place in one location. I enjoyed the majority of the film but found in the end its flashback structure annoying after the fourth or fifth jump back. It’s just a little too much, and the film would be especially annoying on further viewings. Having said that, it’s not as bad as many critics make it out to be, as it features some great twists, a really cool and stupendously ridiculous chase scene, and a solid performance from Dennis Quaid.

It all starts at a conference meeting in Spain, where the President of the United States (Hurt) arrives and takes the stage in front of a giant audience of on-lookers, including a travelling man with a video camera (Whitaker). Quaid and Fox play members of the President’s secret service, and their jobs are instantly kicked into motion when the President is gunned down by bullets. We see the assassination attempt at first from the news van, where Sigourney Weaver, playing a news show producer, witnesses the tragic event. Then there’s flashback after flashback showing the event from every different point of view (or vantage point, if you must), as details begin to slowly unravel about the event and good and bad persons involved. There is twist piled high on other twists, and one, revealed over an hour into the movie, was already revealed in the trailer, involving the President and his double. Those crazy trailer editors. They don’t know what’s good for them!

One of my favorite films of all time is Memento, so I’m not one to be against alternating structures in movies, in which we move backward and forward in time to learn more about a character or event, and I found myself enjoying the different points of view in the first half-hour. But one of my problems with Vantage Point is that it goes a little overboard with all the points of view. Four would’ve been perfect. Five is a little much. Six is overkill. By the time we go back in time the sixth time, the audience is laughing. We want to know more about the assassination attempt, but if we have to watch it one more time, we may go a little bit insane. It was actually kind of amusing to hear an audience groan every time the movie would flashback to that Noon time that the events begin on. I think I may have been more tolerable of the narrative structures than others, in fact. Since the title promises that we’ll get different points of view, the film can’t really be faulted for the structure, but the amount of view points could’ve been cut down by at least one.

The movie is fairly average in plot and tone, and it’s in the ensemble of talented actors that the movie makes any sort of memorable impression. The one who does best is Dennis Quaid, who just two years ago played the President himself (in the fairly awful American Dreamz), and now, playing a Secret Service agent, and one who has some added baggage, he plays a more intelligent and vulnerable figure. Forest Whitaker is also effective in a rather underwritten role, playing a travelling husband and father who just happens to stumble on the crisis but decides to actually take part in help finding the assassin. A minor but sweet subplot involves his meeting with a little girl and the ramifications of that encounter. Hurt is fine, Fox is OK, and Weaver is severly under-used, really just a part of the opening ten minutes. It should be a criminal offense to under-use Sigourney Weaver in a movie. More of her here would’ve been greatly appreciated.

I’m really close to giving this film a higher rating, but at the end of the day the majority of the movie just didn’t stick with me, and, nearly a week after seeing it, it’s basically been forgotten. I can’t honestly say it’s any more exciting than a better episode of 24. That being said, Vantage Point would be an excellent rental, and it’s definitely well-made and entertaining. I just found the flashback technique a little bit tiring after awhile and the end a little bit too coincidental and easy. This film is what Netflix was invented for, that is if it can wade through dozens of titles that may, ultimately, be better choices.