I just finished watching the film Vantage Point last week. The central idea behind the film is how ones perception of reality radically depends on ones point of view. It demonstrates this idea by telling and retelling the story, from different perspectives, of a terrorist attack in Salamanca involving the President of the United States (POTUS).
The movie was good and generally entertaining. I just have a few comments and nits:
1. There was at least one discrepancy between the stories: During the iteration which follows Forrest Whitaker's character (an American tourist with marital problems back home), there are two secret service agents who appear at the end at a crucial moment but are absent from the corresponding scene in the final iteration of the story.
2. A second slight weakness in terms of the construction of the story: At a crucial point, the main terrorist leader who has clearly established his callous disregard for human life during the rest of the film, makes a surprise move actually swerves to avoid hitting a little girl.
3. Finally (and here is the "Grenada-esque" bit) maybe this is just as further example of how everything depends on perspective but the terrorists' motivations aren't made totally clear in the film. In one iteration, a member of the President's staff says that a group called Mujahideen Brigade with connections to Morocco is planning an attack on the President. But when we follow the terrorists, there are few, if any, clues to their ideology and all of them, even the sleeper agent, speak nothing but Spanish.
Anyone else see this movie?
The movie was good and generally entertaining. I just have a few comments and nits:
1. There was at least one discrepancy between the stories: During the iteration which follows Forrest Whitaker's character (an American tourist with marital problems back home), there are two secret service agents who appear at the end at a crucial moment but are absent from the corresponding scene in the final iteration of the story.
2. A second slight weakness in terms of the construction of the story: At a crucial point, the main terrorist leader who has clearly established his callous disregard for human life during the rest of the film, makes a surprise move actually swerves to avoid hitting a little girl.
3. Finally (and here is the "Grenada-esque" bit) maybe this is just as further example of how everything depends on perspective but the terrorists' motivations aren't made totally clear in the film. In one iteration, a member of the President's staff says that a group called Mujahideen Brigade with connections to Morocco is planning an attack on the President. But when we follow the terrorists, there are few, if any, clues to their ideology and all of them, even the sleeper agent, speak nothing but Spanish.
Anyone else see this movie?
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