Vantage Point (2008)

So I just finished watching "Vantage Point," and I wanted to suggest a few more titles: how about Asinine Point, Plot Hole Point, Contrived Point, or even good ol' Stupidity Point? Not good enough? How about Convoluted Point, Reliant on Ridiculous Directing Point, or Completely Implausible Point?

Since the closing credits boldly declare authorship of this insipid film, I thought I'd repeat that information here so that you can make sure to avoid films written or directed by this dimwitted duo:

Directed by Pete Travis
Written by Barry Levy

Oh, what? You've never heard of Pete Travis? Why, he directed such gems as "Omargh" and "The Jury." I suppose I can forgive you for not knowing of his prior work, since all 5 of his previous pieces were for the small screen, the most recent having aired 4 YEARS AGO. So I guess Hollywood was giving a down-on-his-luck director a chance here, but surely they would team him up with a veteran writer, right? I mean Barry Levyis well known for his previous work on....nothing? Barry Levy had never written anything prior to this movie? What the hell is this?

I'm beginning to see what's going on here. This movie was more complicated than I thought -- the conspiracy even spills over into the writer and director. How else could a team who have never made a single feature length movie get tapped for a production that includes two Oscar nominees, Dennis Quaid and Sigourney Weaver, and the 2006 winner for Best Actor, Forrest Whitaker?

This must all be part of the same terrorist plot that included a CNN camerman (who we never hear about after his two lines of terrible Spanish until the point when a fellow terrorist inexplicably shoots him, nor do we know why he was part of the team in the first place), a secret service agent (the secret service is known for recruiting foreign nationals who are also terrorists to work the president's detail), an unwilling former "special forces" man who is willing to kill 30+ innocent people in order to save his brother (don't bother trying to find an explanation about this back story), and a suave terrorist leader who has a cell phone that remotely controls a sniper rifle that somehow made it into the "cleared" building overlooking the plaza where the President is speaking. Or his double. Or whatever.

Apparently the real terrorist plot involves making the American movie-going public dumber, or maybe frustrating us so much that we kill ourselves en masse. Maybe it was meant to single handly stop the viewers from ever paying to see a movie again, thereby contributing to the crumbling of our economy. I mean, why else would they depict a cadre of Secret Service agents that was concerned enough about an anonymous threat to the President's life that they sent a double to speak for him at an important political summit, but this same group of secret service agents merely glances casually out the window when a suicide bomber blows himself up in the lobby of the President's hotel -- taking no further action than to admonish the President to "step away from the window."

Why else would they have Forrest Whitaker's character be the fattest guy in the film, but still make him capable of filming every significant event of the terrorist plot on his handycam -- a feat which requires that he consistently outrun the police, the terrorists, the secret service and even a speeding ambulance?

Why else would they bring all of the plot threads back to a single point at the end of the show, with the only legitimate coordination of this incredible piece of happenstance being a whispered, "meet me at the underpass," spoken to only 1 of the 10 people that miraculously end up at this featureless spot on the highway at the exact same time.

This was a stupid movie masquerading as a smart one by seeming to deal with complex political issues, mixing in current events and unnecessarily complicating the plot by re-presenting the first 15 minutes from multiple perspectives (not vantage points). That wily writer/terrorist Levy thought that we wouldn't figure out his evil plot if he threw in technical terms like "POTUS" and "GSW," and director/terrorist Travis hoped we might give up and just let this cinematic affront wash over our non-firing cerebellums after watching Forrest Whitaker bend the space time continuum, with each of his lumbering steps carry him the equivalent of a football field. But with more than 755,000 people on the terrorist watch list, including Nelson Mandela and Cat Stevens, I can't imagine that Homeland Security will ever let us hear from Travis and Levy again. That is, unless this conspiracy runs deeper than I thought...