by zEke
Some will think that Akira Kurosawa is as boring as a day without bread but no one can deny he has done for cinema so much, and so good. rashômon (1950) might be, together with the seven samurais (1954), his most noticeable work. In it a rape and a murder is told through the point of view of four different witnesses including the perpetrator and the victim. The impact of the movie was so high that even psychology borrowed the term to explain the impossibility of obtaining the truth from an event accounted by different witnesses. And that is the original starting point of vantage point. Unfortunately, it soon becomes a burden.
The shooting of the president of the United States in a public event in Salamanca, Spain, is told through the point of view of a television producer (Sigourney Weaver), a bodyguard (Dennis Quaid), a Spaniard police officer (Eduardo Noriega), an American tourist (Forest Whitaker), the president himself (William Hurt), and finally, if you are able to sit still that far, an omniscient narrator.
The whole thing has a promising start but by the third recreation of the events one realizes the format is all vantage point has to offer. Writer Barry Levy and director Pete Travis are not able to build up the tension necessary to hold you to your seat. Thus, the repetition of the events despite of the new ingredients introduced each time rather than revealing becomes boring. Furthermore, the last one, not only tie up the loose ends, but makes everything else dispensable. Maybe it is just me and the idea that I had in mind. I expected each point of view to be incomplete and only tied together in our heads. On Levy’s defense I will say that he puts together a rather impressive final car chase.
The acting is, being really generous, mediocre. How is that possible with such a cast? I have seen it before, and I will see it again. Full of clichés. I will argue though, that it is not entirely the cast’s fault, but the characters’. Whitaker’s one is a good example of this. A clumsy American tourist that eventually is able to run as fast as a police officer and two bodyugard on duty, while filming everything with his camcorder. And I will not say anything about Quaid’s persistent constipation face. I am sorry, I just did.
On a different note, Hollywood still needs to work better the way they portray Spain. Nevertheless, I must see there has been some improvement since mission: impossible II (2000). According to Ethan Hunt in Spain we burn our Saints. In vantage point Salamanca only looks like Salamanca while in the Plaza Mayor. Most of the movie was shot in Mexico and that might be the reason why all the extras trying to look like Spaniards look like Mexicans. Nevertheless, I have to say that, at least, in the overall fake reproduction of Salamanca there is nothing offensive, just wrong.
For the deadhours of those who like to hear the same story from each of his friends over and over again.
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