Do You Only See What Your Eyes Want to See?

This is what you need to know about Vantage Point.

It’s a perfectly beautiful morning in Salamanca, Spain.

Hundreds of people have gathered to listen to the president of the United States deliver a speech, when, before he can greet his audience, he’s shot down.

Got that? OK….

This is what you need to know about Vantage Point.

It’s a perfectly beautiful morning in….

You see, there are eight strangers in the plaza where the POTUS was to speak, each with a different vantage point…each with a very different piece of the puzzle that will help Secret Service agents Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) figure out who is behind this assassination.

The problem is by the time the third, not to mention fourth and fifth “This is what you need to know about Vantage Point. It’s a perfectly beautiful morning in….” rolls, you might feel a bit fatigued.

Taking a cue from Fox’s TV show Lost, the movie begins playing this pivotal scene from the perspective of a news crew that includes Zoë Saldana and Sigourney Weaver, only to go back and play it again from the agents’, then again from that of an American tourist (Forest Whitaker), and then twice again.

Each time, though, you might find yourself hoping the filmmakers had, oh, I don’t know, streamlined this scene to get to the good part faster.

This is not to say Vantage Point is worthless. It’s a perfectly fine late-winter thriller that features a really cool car chase. It’s like the board game Clue, except in this case, if you’re smart, you’ll have figured out who’s the bad guy by the 45-minute mark. And this is a 90-minute movie.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: Columbia Pictures.