VANTAGE POINT - DISADVANTAGE POINT

I've just gotten in after watching the film Vantage Point, it's fresh in my mind so I'm going to blog on it now. If you haven't seen the film then do not read on any further.....

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WARNING MOVIE SPOILER AHEAD

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The film uses an interesting if not original concept of showing the different viewpoints of 8 different people who have just witnessed the assassination of the President of the USA in a quaint town in Spain. A totally exposed president who steps forward onto a stage and immediately launches himself into a Jesus pose only to be suddenly struck in the chest by 2 bullets. A couple of bombs then go off killing dozens maybe hundreds of bystanders.

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We then get to see the differing points of view of the 8 people in a rewind style, which kind of works but gets boring by the 4th rewind. Fortunately there is a twist in the 5th viewpoint which re engages you to the plot. The plot twists and turns for the next hour or so (sadly there really is only 20 minutes of story to actually tell) before finally taking a fatal turn which sends it plunging off a cliff and into an abyss of absurdity.

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Wow, an American film that screws up the ending, has that ever happened before? Dennis Quaid plays a secret service agent scarred by the memories of a year ago when he took a bullet for the very president now lying dead/dying. Singlehandily in the space of 23 minutes (that's the length of each rewind - not real time of course) he unravels the mystery of who carried out the assassination and sets off in hot pursuit. Mostly in a Mazda something or other 2 door hatchback, no doubt Mazda's latest model, you should all run out and buy one tomorrow because that lil sucker is indestructible.

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Quaid (or the Quaidinator as Waz described him) dodges flying cars, flying pedestrians and even gets T boned twice in that car, the second time by a truck which eventually slams him and the indestructible vehicle into a wall. Note: Apparently all vehicles in Spain have their airbags removed pre sale, no doubt these are just expensive, bulky and unnecessary extras. At least a dozen vehicles come to grief in the car chase and not a single airbag makes an appearance. Quaids Mazda of Invincibility sure as hell doesn't have/require one.

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For me, the "this movie is crap" cruncher appears in the last 10 minutes when a little girl, whom we met earlier in the piece, steps out onto the road in front of the ambulance which is being driven by the assassin, the same guy who just shot a president and detonated a bomb killing many many people all of which were unknown to him suddenly decides that he cannot possibly hit and kill this also unknown to him innocent little girl, so he violently turns the ambulance to his left. This ensures that it rolls over and slides along the road towards her. Luckily she is saved by Forest Whitaker, who for a big overweight unfit guy has just run 7 city blocks, through a church and onto and then down from an overpass. Dude hardly be out of breath too, well he is a brother and the brothers be natural athletes yes?!

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The ending has all of the principal characters meeting up at this very overpass/underpass, which is only 7 blocks from the scene of the crime.....huh?....shouldn't they be avoiding the lock down of the city that the secret service ordered immediately after the president was shot? How they have this power over a Spanish municipality is beyond me, but hey they were all moments ago running through the streets shooting at people and not one of the armed Spanish police were wondering what was going on or questioned the sense of doing this in streets full of innocent citizens. But hey, screw the citizens there's secret service business afoot por favor.

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So once the Quaidinator unloads the last 23 rounds from his 9mm pistol, yes a huge clip, must have been special issue, into the final 2 bad guys, he wanders over to the crashed ambulance to find, surprise surprise, the president, alive and well except for a few scratches. The president is then whisked from the scene by Marine One, yep the presidents helicopter, what do you mean? yeah it was in Spain, why not? what's so strange about his helicopter being in Spain, I believe they simply tow it behind Air Force One RV style when ever he travels overseas, it comes in handy ya know.

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The must see film of the year