Someone tried to assassinate the American president and eight witnesses told him from eight different perspectives on what happened. Perhaps someone of us knows this whole truth as the shattered final truth that confuses so many is revealed.
While the title, trailer and commercials imply that we'll be carefully piecing together clues to a complex assassination attempt as seen from several perspectives, the final product turns out to be a tepid thriller that promises more than it delivers.
If you are looking for mindless action, it's not bad. But since this is trying to be something more than that, I can't quite recommend it.
Seattle Times
February 22, 2008
All this visual caffeine is in service to a story that isn't worth telling, and that too frequently resorts to the cheap technique of putting an adorable little girl in peril, then cutting away.
San Francisco Chronicle
February 22, 2008
When everything is finally revealed, the story Vantage Point tells is fairly pedestrian, and nothing special is gained from all the stopping and restarting.
Although based around a familiar, Rashomon-style concept, Vantage Point ratchets up its intensity so effectively that the lack of originality hardly matters.
Although mounted with no little efficiency by director Pete Travis (who previously made the TV drama-doc 'Omagh'), the narrative enterprise actually hides a one-dimensional world view, with civilian casualties mere background set dressing.
