Vantage Point (***)

I like the idea of this movie, which follows an attempted assassination of the American president from several points of view, replaying the same 23 minutes multiple times. The action takes place entirely in an unnamed Spanish city, where the president (William Hurt) is to give a speech kicking off a peace summit. We start off watching from inside the control room at “Global News Network,” where a director (Sigourney Weaver) is berating a reporter for mentioning the protesters present at the event. After we follow the shooting and its immediate aftermath, everything rewinds, and we watch again, but from a different view, learning more as the action takes in the secret service agents (primarily one played by Dennis Quaid), a video-camera-wielding tourist (Forest Whitaker), and eventually the usual evildoers.

It’s not exactly Rashomon—different characters aren’t seeing the same events differently, but rather see different pieces of the same event. Still, director Pete Travis does put all of them together quite effectively, and tops it all off with an above-average car chase, even if he does overdo the close-ups. Inevitably, the outcome relies on the perpetrators executing a sophisticated plan perfectly, yet in the end making an error that is a) telegraphed to the audience; b) the sort you've seen in many other movies; and c) one not even a first-time evildoer would be stupid enough to make. The major twists—there are two—are surprises precisely because they’re difficult to believe. Disappointing, but not enough that I still didn't feel entertained. Interestingly, the movie matches an idealistic portrayal of the president, who wisely resists the hawkish advice of his advisors, with an extremely cynical one of the media, who prefer to package the story rather than report it.

IMDB link

viewed and reviewed 2/23/08

Shooter (**3/4)

? A US special-forces marksman (Mark Wahlberg), hired to thwart a presidential assassination, winds up a target of the would-be killers. Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) directed Jonathan Lemkin’s adaptation of the Stephen Hunter novel.
+ I was into this movie for the first half, although I figured out who the villains were. (No big deal, as that gets revealed early.) Here we see the hero display all the tricks of his trade. Like so many criminals, he figures out that Philly is a good place to kill someone and get away with it, so the pivotal scenes take place around Independence Hall, and there’s some impressive aerial footage of the city. With the help of one of the feds and a schoolteacher, he takes on platoons of unfriendly types with just some household items. The main appeal, besides huge explosions, is watching the lone wolf use his superior training to outwit and outfight everyone.
- An exciting setup, but both the premise and the outcome become implausible, then absurd, as the movie goes on. The villains are so cartoonishly evil that I was expecting one of them to shout “Bwa-ha-ha-ha!” One actually does say, “I win; you lose.” Twice. But by then the movie has descended into trite formula.
= **3/4 Worth a look for shoot-’em-up fans and conspiracy-movie buffs. Sort of similar to The Sentinel, which is a better movie.

IMDB link

reviewed 3/29/07

The Sentinel (***)

 An unambitious but fairly entertaining Secret Service thriller with Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland as former friends involved in an assassination.

Based on a novel by Gerald Petievich, this thriller centers around Secret Service agents trying to detect a traitor in their midst. Michael Douglas’s character is kind of the flip side of Clint Eastwood’s in In the Line of Fire. Rather than being haunted by failing to thwart an assassin, he’s a hero for saving Reagan. He’s now assigned to protect the First Lady (Kim Basinger). Kiefer Sutherland is a friend turned rival charged with investigating the death of agent, possibly part of an internal plot against the president. The early part of the movie does an excellent job of conveying the nature of an agent’s job, wading through a constant stream of information, only a tiny fraction of which turns out to be relevant. I expected the plot to turn on this ability to weed out true danger from false threats, and so was a little disappointed when it evolves into a lengthy and improbable manhunt. The arch-villain turns out to be as generically uninteresting as they come. Nonetheless, the players are interesting enough to make this worth a look if you’re in the mood.

IMDB link

posted 8/24/13