Creative quotient
Vantage Point tells the story of the assassination of the President of United States from 8 different viewpoints of eight different characters. This set of eight characters includes people in charge of the President’s security, the media, civilians and the people taking out the attack.
The film starts off with Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver), the director of a TV station, broadcasting the President’s speech. The only information this scene divulges is what meets with the eye. The film then rewinds 23 minutes to Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), a secret service agent in charge of protecting the President. The film tells all eight characters’ view in a short span of time and keeps rewinding to the start of the event for each character.
Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) is a civilian video-taping the event to show to his children that he was actually there at a historic event. He accidentally captures what he believes is the picture of the assassin.
For the audience it’s a case of piecing together eight different clues arising from eight different perspectives to unravel the truth behind an assassination attempt.

Technical expertise
Since the film is divided into so many sub-plots, its screenplay delivers some magnificent edge-of-the-seat action and thrills. The events take place fast and the whole film keeps rolling at lightning speed.
But, it all seems loosely tied together. The reason for that being focussing on eight perspectives of the same story that involves eight central characters plus their support characters. Focus on so many subjects dilutes the film’s excitement and also does not allow time for any serious character development.
Vantage Point has some really great acting talent but the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Forest Whitaker, Dennis Quad and Mathew Fox are given no room to shine. Yet almost every actor of the cast does a decent job of salvaging their characters.
The movie is full of action sequences, gun-shots, explosions and there’s even a classic car chase. But where the film has almost all the formulaeic elements to create a good action thriller, its constant narrative jumps and lack of character development make it a little annoying.
Vantage Point can safely be labelled a creative experiment with a unique perspective towards a clichéd action film subject. But, despite its good intentions the end product of the film is recommended only for the discerning audience. Those, that is, with a taste for what’s different.

Verdict
Vantage Point is worth two and a half stars. One for the saving grace from its ensemble cast of actors, another for its unique perspective on action films and half a star for its action sequences.