Vantage Point 2008

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: A gimmick in search of its own point. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: If you're up for good nihilist entertainment, look no further. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: What is the real crime? Why, beating the audience about the ears, eyes and brain with essentially the same sequence of events from eight characters' points of view, none of which adds much more than deafening hysteria and identically dreadful music. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: 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. Read more

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Travis dutifully pastes the story-shards together, but he and the actors are hamstrung by a script that's so busy piling on the twists that it never pauses to consider what they mean. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The problem with Vantage Point, or at least one problem, is that it depends too much on coincidence. The film relies on things breaking a certain way for nearly every plot advancement. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Reduces global terrorism to a Rubik's Cube suitable for an evening's entertainment. If that doesn't make you vaguely ill, by all means take this thriller for the shallow, gimmicky "ride" it aspires to be. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Initially intriguing and energetic, this film ends up demonstrating that a good script needs to be more than a clever concept and fine direction must be more than moving things fast. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The information sorting and gathering required by Barry L. Levy's screenplay feels like night school as opposed to a great night out at the movies. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: A nice, straightforward, good old-fashioned geopolitical conspiracy thriller with no pretentions. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Vantage Point makes nice use of the heft of Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver in a story in which an assassination followed by an explosion gets revisited from eight points of view. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: You can watch a Bugs Bunny cartoon from 10 different angles, and it's still a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Vantage Point is a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The director, Pete Travis, is a pulse-pounding technological showman whose high-strung, quick-cut style might be described as JFK meets Paul Greengrass meets Jerry Bruckheimer. That said, it's not the plot that thickens -- it's the pulp. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Barry Levy's script slavers for comparisons to Rashomon but misses the point. Akira Kurosawa argued that truth was slippery; Levy believes there's one answer, he just likes withholding it. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: Nothing in Vantage Point quickens the pulse as much as the realization that, with each successive turn of the wheel, we come one step closer to the end. Read more

Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News: The bones of a good idea for a conspiracy thriller lie buried in the corpse of Vantage Point. It feels more like a movie with a personality disorder. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: An assassination thriller that boasts the glossy tourist vistas of an airline magazine combined with a serious case of instant-replay-itis. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Is it art? Not remotely. But, up to the final scenes, it's a tremendous piece of engineering. And the hurtling force of Vantage Point is fun to watch. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Director Pete Travis keeps things grim and gritty and moving. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Chugging forward and chundering back, the movie keeps promising to whip up something hellishly complicated, but what keeps the movie going for an hour and a half is not a complicated plot but a stingy way of dribbling out information. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The sense of deja vu I had watching so many runaway vehicles crashing and smashing through the narrow cobblestone Spanish streets only reminded me how much more fun I've had watching the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: An overplotted, gimmicky presidential-assassination thriller, its interlocking pieces have to fit just so for it to stay coherent and ratchet up the tension. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Vantage Point offers a modicum of entertainment but it requires viewers to react more forcefully from the gut than the mind. It's viscerally effective but lobotomized. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: When everything is finally revealed, the story Vantage Point tells is fairly pedestrian, and nothing special is gained from all the stopping and restarting. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: While it's no classic, Vantage Point is well worth a look. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The problem with Vantage Point is that the rapid-rewind technique keeps interfering with the thriller's momentum. Read more

Philip Marchand, Toronto Star: Vantage Point is a thriller that has quite a lot on its mind. The very structure of the movie challenges the audience's patience, if not its wit. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: 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. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: The assassination thriller Vantage Point might have been a triumph of form over content, technique over substance, if only there were anything worthy about its form or technique. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: 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. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: A 23-minute movie dragged out, via some narrative gimmickry, to a punishing hour and a half. Read more

John Anderson, Washington Post: The question regarding Vantage Point is how this thriller with the Groundhog Day fixation was allowed to meander out of Columbia Pictures so overloaded with bad acting. Read more