One crime, multiple vantage points. Sounds cool right? Yes. But "Vantage Point" never really pulls it off quite how it sets itself up to. The result is a cool action flick with some clever storytelling that sort of fizzles in the end.

In "Vantage Point," the President of the United States (William Hurt) arrives in Salamanca, Spain to give a speech on global terrorism efforts and ties with Spain to improve them. He gets shot and then a bomb goes off killing many people. We get this story through the eyes of a variety of characters and by the end of the film know exactly what happened.

The cast is a solid mix of familiar and old faces. Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, Matthew Fox (of LOST fame) and even Sigorney Weaver give this film the star power it requires. The terrorists are entirely new faces, which is no real surprise.

As the film first presents the vantage point concept, the first thirty or forty-five minutes develop a redundancy. You do get many new perspectives, but seeing the same events happen over and over again and the cheesy rewind sequences to establish a change in POV really gets a bit boring. Sometimes you're not really seeing something new, just the same old thing in a new way that doesn't really bring more insight into the plot. Sometime it does and it really helps the film, but mostly it's not the vantage points, but cutting the story off at pivotal moments and clues into the mystery so that when they're revealed in another perspective you can get excited. It's just good storytelling, nothing unique.

The film really loses its appeal, however, with the "final perspective." In fact, it's not really anyone's perspective. The writers sort of realized that adding five more perspectives to reveal the full mystery (which is what it would have taken) would really bother viewers and get absurdly repetitive, so they combined them all into a final twenty minute action sequence that is like any other normal action movie.

Was deviating from the concept in order to please viewers and keep the film short the best course of action? For this film, yes. Sticking to the concept would have made it bad considering the complexity of the plot. But even the ending can also be seen about 15 minutes prior to when it happens, so it's not really all that great. This film would have been better, however, if it could both stay true to the structural concept and please the viewer, which means first-time writer Barry Levy stretched his idea just a bit too far. ~Steven C

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The malevolent forces of Islamic terrorism have one sophisticated plan to foil an international summit where President William Hurt is about to sign a treaty with several nations. It's more of a photo-op than a summit; it looks like agreement's been reached for some new cooperation against terrorism. But the jihadists have something in the works.

I'm still trying to figure out why not only our president but several other unnamed world leaders are left in harm's way for the sake of some publicity. Sign the treaty and send out a press release.

All hell breaks loose as William Hurt is shot as he reaches the podium and after that a bomb goes off in the city center of Salamanca, Spain where all this is happening. It's only gradually after seeing the events from eight different perspectives that the whole story unfolds.

It was an interesting concept, but really far fetched. In fact the only reason the bad guys get as far as they do is because they have some inside help. I'll say no more.

Dennis Quaid is the intrepid Secret Service agent who puts the whole thing together literally on the run. Best in the film for me is news producer Sigourney Weaver and innocent American tourist bystander Forest Whittaker who in my humble opinion is the real hero of the piece.

Interesting this title was chosen for the film. Vantage Point was the title of the presidential memoirs of Lyndon B. Johnson. One of the dullest reads for presidential writing ever. But LBJ's view of the policies he followed had nothing on unreality as this film does.

A real messy mix of a film. It begins with the assassination of the President and a subsequent bomb attack in Spain; the story then rewinds and unfolds as it is shown from the perspective of multiple "vantage points" of participants who happen to be at the scene. As each strand comes to a close, having brought a further understanding of what's taken place, the film rewinds in time to present yet another perspective.

The film's idea was, of course, first utilised by Akira Kurosawa in RASHOMON, but VANTAGE POINT is an entirely different spin on the same subject, making use of modern technology to present its story in a fresh and interesting way. Although some of the twists and developments are fairly unbelievable, I felt I was seeing something new – which is getting unusual with films these days. Unfortunately, at around the halfway point, the movie finishes telling that particular story and then muddles in some perfunctionary subsequent events, involving well-shot car chases, terrorist cells and traitors. It's not bad, but too heavily indebted to the look and style of the Greengrass BOURNE films.

The ensemble cast is impressive but lesser than the sum of its parts. Bland actors like Matthew Fox and William Hurt are given plenty of screen time while Forest Whitaker and in particular Sigourney Weaver are wasted in minor roles. Dennis Quaid has a major turn as a presidential bodyguard, but seems to be aping Harrison Ford for the majority of the film. The non-American actors (Edgar Ramirez, Said Taghmaoui and Dolorez Heredia) give the most authentic turns.