Product Details

• Actors: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: July 1, 2008
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (157 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0018CWW32
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #36,352 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Vantage Point, which aspires to be a cunningly twisted thriller, comes equipped with plenty of hurtling action, handheld camerawork, what-was-that? editing, and a plot that has multiple, contradictory agendas writhing like a nest of snakes. It's all set a-boil within a few blocks of a town square in Spain where a U.S. President is targeted for assassination. Although the movie lasts 90 minutes, the events it depicts are mostly over with in a quarter-hour or so--but seen, rewound, and reseen from half a dozen different (you guessed it) vantage points. The first line in the credits reads "Original Film," apparently the name of the production company. "Gimmick Movie" would be more accurate; the opening reel, effectively jolting, affords an initial overview of the events through the eyes, lenses, monitors, and dueling sensibilities of a TV news producer (Sigourney Weaver), her activist-minded reporter (Zoe Saldana) and crew. Everybody’s in Salamanca (actually, Mexico City) for the start of an international conference to reaffirm Arab-Western commitment to the fight against terrorism. Terrorism, of course, sees this as an ideal moment to break out. As gunshots and explosions reduce everything to chaos, the clock is reset to zero and we proceed to revisit the scene as experienced by several Secret Service agents (namely Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox), an American tourist with camcorder (Forest Whitaker), sundry locals--including three who may be caught up in a love triangle or a conspiracy or both--and even the President himself (William Hurt).

For a while, this is mildly diverting: that guy, or that gesture, so sinister when glimpsed across the plaza in one run-through, now appears harmless in close-up--or vice versa. But there's no real ambiguity (so stop with the careless comparisons to Kurosawa's Rashomon)--this is a shell game in which the peas aren't worth tracking. Despite decent actors, the characters might as well be holograms (although poor Forest Whitaker is saddled with "motivation" of surpassing sappiness), and the casting telegraphs several twists: one redoubtable good guy practically gives a wink-wink, nudge-nudge that he's really bad, etc. The movie declines to specify which nutjob philosophy the terrorists espouse, and their numbers are multi-ethnic. There's also a laborious suggestion that they have bloodthirsty, reactionary counterparts among the President's inner circle, which perhaps qualifies as redeeming socio-political comment and prompts a meaningless declaration of deep meaning from the Prez. The whole megilleh finally comes down to an extended car chase through impassably claustrophobic streets that would mark a lurch into unintentional self-parody--if only that point hadn't been passed a couple of rewinds earlier. --Richard T. Jameson

Stills from Vantage Point (click for larger image)

Product Description
During an historic counter-terrorism summit in Spain, the President of the United States is struck down by an assassin's bullet. Eight strangers have a perfect view of the kill, but what did they really see? As the minutes leading up to the fatal shot are replayed through the eyes of each eyewitness, the reality of the assassination takes shape. But just when you think you know the answer, the shattering final truth is revealed. Vantage Point is a mind bending political action-thriller starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Academy Award® Winner Forest Whitaker (Best Actor 2006, The Last King of Scotland), with Sigourney Weaver and Academy Award® winner William Hurt (Best Actor 1985, Kiss of the Spider Woman).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Vantage Point - Gets Better Towards the End, Worth Watching!, March 8, 2008

By	Mark "Technology, Music and Movies" (East Coast) - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)

"Vantage Point" is a good action drama that you can predict pretty well from the trailer. It is based on a concept that has been done many times before, that of telling the same story from multiple points of view. Fans of "24" will get a strong sense of déjà vu 24 - Season 1 (Slim - Pack). Yet the core story is interesting. The action sequences and great camera work make this a movie worth watching. Good acting and a strong finish help to overcome some loose ends and production errors.

The President of the United States (William Hurt), or POTUS as referred to by the secret service, is the target of a group of terrorists whose objectives are never revealed to us. While overseas to attend an anti-terrorism summit in Spain, he is shot. Or is he?

Dennis Quaid and Mathew Fox (of "Lost" fame Lost - The Complete First Season) play secret service agents there to protect the President. After multiple attacks occur after the president is shot, they scramble to try to respond and find the shooter. It is very difficult to tell which attacks are meant to kill and which are meant to divert attention away from the villains.

Quaid takes advantage of Forest Whitaker's camcorder film and the media's tapes to piece together the story. As each of the characters is swung into action, we get to see their individual struggles to cope with chaos and how their stories are interconnected.

Perhaps in an homage to "24," after each character's scene finishes it 'rewinds' to the beginning to give us the next character's 'vantage point.' This gets old fast. After a while, these vantage points seem to disintegrate into one another and overlap more and more. In fact, this is one story where the effect seems to have taken away from the story.

The action sequences are very strong, and even though there's a lot of hand held camera work they get enough steady shots to make the chase scenes watchable. Most notable is a car chase scene that is bound to draw comparisons to Ronin Ronin, The Bourne Identity The Bourne Identity (Widescreen Extended Edition), The Italian Job The Italian Job (Special Collector's Edition) and other recent car chase movies. Putting together a sequence like that is very difficult, and I can't wait for the DVD to see how they did it. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good car chase.

The pacing of the movie is good and especially improves once we get to the last few vantage points. The score is excellent and blends well with the action sequences. We are purposely left without reasons why this group is after the president.

There are some technical things that are off in the movie. Anybody who has ever been to Spain will get that uneasy feeling. Once you see the Mexican extras and hear them speak a very Central American Spanish it becomes clear they are in Mexico, not Spain. They try to use a few Spanish actors, but it's not enough to feel like Spain.

Some parts of the dialogue seem overly preachy. Still, this movie does effectively portray how difficult security planning is in a world where government security tactics are public knowledge. The story probably would have been more profound and meaningful with a traditional plot-line, which it turns into at the end anyway.

This movie is worth watching and improves a lot towards the end. You just have to get past several very annoying rewind sequences and plenty of early repetition.

Enjoy!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Groundhog Day on Steroids!!!!, July 23, 2008

By	Raider Jack "Jackie D Gray-Romeyn" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vantage Point (Single-Disc Edition) (DVD)

Vantage Point is an ingenious action thriller surrounding the attempted assasination of the U.S. President attending an international conference in Spain. The movie is actually 'about" 15 minutes but is seen from the "vantage point' (sorry) of about six different people. Each perspective presents a tad more about the swirling espionage associated with the conference until you realize that nothing is what you thought it was (AT ALL) in the beginning.

Perhaps I am not sophisticated enough to dwell on the supposed GLARING shortcomings of the film. I suspect some "critics" are conditioned/programmed to be oh so discerning that they can't see the forest for the trees - this was a thrilling, action-packed, and rather clever way of looking at an intense incident and is an excellent example of the age-old adage that truth is relative. Six people can look at exactly the same thing and see six different things.

Fun movie. Great action flick. I indeed recommend.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 Stars and I am being kind., April 8, 2008

By	Gogol (England) - See all my reviews

This film just follows on with the trend of every other post 9/11 terrorist movie. This one going for a slight twist when a terrorist attack is committed against the president of the United States in Spain is seen through various angles and peoples perspectives.

Problem with this film is as I have pointed out its been done a million times before and is just frankly getting boring now (Imagine watching 24 with even less interest and you get the idea) We have the disgruntled secret serviceman who has previously "took a bullet" for the president but never quite recovered, family man American on holiday who when not filming the whole event gets on with the locals and even saves a few of them, hard sell camera crew (Changed CNN to GNN)they even seemed to pick the darkest Spanish people to be as support actors (Was that just to emphasise to the American audience that this was Spain?)

So we have unknown terrorist group whose goal is never quite explained (Though they do appear to have an Arabic name and a base in "friendly" Morocco. I guess just giving us that was enough to convince us of their "badness") Plan an elaborate terrorist attack (If these people do have this kind of planning then God help us all!) with a multi national group with an end aim that is just as unexplained as the actual goals of the organisation itself. Running chase, so called twist to the tale, not so subtle hints as to who the bad guys are and you pretty much have the plot (Not that there is much of one) We are even given a moving speech from the president who refuses to retaliate to the bomb attack with a military strike because that would be "Just what these people want" and encourages his advisers to stick with the conference (Was this supposed to be some kind of "What could have been" Post 9/11) Either way it becomes a mute point when his advisers get gunned down 2 seconds later.

Difficult to have anything positive to say about this film. Instantly forgettable.