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PREMIERE'S REVIEW (posted 2/21/08)

Vantage Point is a more interesting movie than perhaps it realizes. In the course of barreling through an otherwise routine thriller-plot about terrorists in Spain trying to kidnap a visiting President of the United States — referred to constantly here as POTUS, which sounds like a Primus tribute band — the film reveals, almost casually, that the President (played by the always enjoyable William Hurt) has a double. (It's in the trailer, so no spoiler warning is necessary.) Since the film takes place in the present day and not, say, 1856, that's a pretty amazing conceit. How did the President acquire this double — a mirror image who must have an identical voice to pass muster in the media age? Does he keep a secret twin under lock and key, Dumas-style? Is there a more sci-fi explanation? Did he ever think of the scandal it might cause if this double got liquored up and went on Leno? Sadly, these are all questions which Vantage Point has no interest in answering.

Instead, the film pushes another gimmick to the main stage; the assassination of the double (who's preparing to make a speech) and the immediate aftermath are re-run for us, the audience, again and again, each time from a different character's point of view. (Inevitable comparisons to Rashomon are inexact — this film isn't created out of the varying interpretations of eye witnesses, it just places those witnesses at different locales in an objectively real setting, and tracks back to tell each story.) The witnesses include a tourist with a camcorder (conspicuously branded with a Sony logo) played by Forest Whitaker, a sweaty and possibly hung-over Secret Service agent played by Dennis Quaid, Lost's Matthew Fox as his young beefcake partner, and a fidgety local cop played by Eduardo Noriega. Also appearing for a combined total of two minutes are James Cameron survivors Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana, as a bunkered news producer and on-the-scene reporter, respectively. That the film gives these two actresses nothing to do is nearly as inexplicable as its "double" twist.