by Karyn L. Beach

Full of action with a car chase towards the end that looked like something from one of the Bourne films (and that’s a good thing), if you are looking for action, Vantage Point should satisfy.

History is in the making in Salamanca, Spain, as an unprecedented Anti-terrrorism agreement has been reached. The pact is placed in serious jeopardy when an assassination attempt is made against U.S. President Ashton (William Hurt). We see the moments leading up to the shooting and several occurring afterwards from a number of ‘vantage points.’ We see them through the eyes of a seasoned news producer (Sigourney Weaver) and her assertive reporter (Zoe Saldana), and through the eyes of Secret Service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) who’s returned to service after taking a bullet for the president and his partner Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox). We also see it through the eyes of a recently divorced father who’s touring Europe on his own (Forest Whitaker) with his trusty DVD video camera.

From the other side, we get to see the events unfold through the eyes of a Spanish policeman Enrique (Eduardo Noriega) who suspects his girlfriend is seeing another man. As well as through the eyes of the terrorist mastermind (Saïd Taghmaoui) and a very reluctant accomplice (Edgar Ramirez).We also get to review the day’s events from the President’s point of view and from a young girl who ends up being at the wrong place at the right time.

Movies that play with time lines have mixed results with me. I was reluctant to have to sit through several retellings of the exact same event. But writer Barry Levy puts enough different material in each point of view that I never felt like I was watching the same thing over and over again.

Director Pete Travis kept the action moving. Coming in at a lean and mean 90 minutes, he packs the movie full of chases, explosions and shifting perspectives.

Sure some of the dialogue was too on the mark. And, if you really stopped to think about it, you might wonder how a certain character came to have certain knowledge or how someone could survive an intensely brutal car chase. But Travis keeps the action moving at such a frantic pace that you don’t have time to ask those questions.

As I left the theatre, I heard several people commenting on the face-pace of the film was and they were very satisfied. “Whew!” and Wow” were a few of the phrases I heard uttered.

A big grip of mine however concerns the trailer. There is a scene in the trailer that gives a way what could have been a nice plot twist. I would have liked to see that bit of information revealed to me in the film and not in the trailers and in the promos.

Vantage Point is quite an entertaining ride from any point of view.