Review: Ambitious film doesn’t meet new action standard

A superb trailer does not a superb movie make. Despite what has to be one of the best trailers in recent memory, “Vantage Point,” the film for which it is out stumping, does not live up to its heady, testosterone-injected promise.

But it’s not entirely the film’s fault. “Vantage Point” is based on a compelling, if complicated, premise borrowed from the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece of individual perspective, “RashÃ'mon.” It endeavors to determine the truth behind an assassination attempt on the president of the United States by witnessing the event through eight points of view.

Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) are Secret Service agents assigned to protect President Ashton (William Hurt) at a landmark summit on the global war on terror. When President Ashton is shot mere seconds after stepping onto the stage to deliver a milestone address, pandemonium ensues and Barnes and Taylor must get to the bottom of who was behind the attack before the assassin melts away into the crowd.

Among the onlookers is a laundry list of spectators: Howard (Forest Whitaker), an American tourist who may have captured the shooter on his camcorder; Rex (Sigourney Weaver), a cable TV news producer covering the event; Veronica (Ayelet Zurer) a seductress with a pitch-black secret; Javier (Edgar Ramirez), an undercover police officer; Enrique (Eduardo Noriega), a blackmailed Special Forces soldier; and Suarez (Saïd Taghmaoui), the only one who comprehends the big picture.

As the onlookers’ perspectives illuminate the horrific attack, the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place, fusing, in the end, to reveal shocking motivations and double-crosses lurking beneath the surface.

“Vantage Point’s” resolution isn’t as complicated as the film would have you believe, purposely over-engineering the story line to hide the plot’s obvious shortcomings. Things come together in the end with such a far-fetched degree of contrivance that we’d have noticed it a lot sooner if it weren’t for all the car chases and pretty explosions. The complexity behind the attack on the president does not reflect a similar complexity of plot, but rather a case of twists and turns to disorientate the equilibrium of viewers’ common sense.

Although the action is supposed to repeat the same brief stretch of time, the filmmakers play fast and loose with the chronology, spending 20 minutes on a scene that earlier ran for a quarter of that. Major characters come and go with implausible regularity — assassins and conspirators are dispatched without so much as a hint to their motivations.

“Vantage Point” comports itself with time-honored, industry-established, traditional camerawork and editing. Why then does the film come across so lifeless and inert?

“Vantage Point” makes its unfortunate debut in a post-Bourne world still reeling from the impact of Paul Greengrass’ audacious direction, Oliver Wood’s nausea-inducing cinematography and Christopher Rouse’s kinetic editing — a triumvirate juggernaut that has done nothing less than reinvent the action genre.

The Bourne films have fundamentally altered the rules, and it will be some time before everyone realizes it, much less catches up. Every action thriller from here on out must adapt or risk coming across like some middling, antiquated dinosaur.

“Vantage Point,” in the hands of “Bourne’s” crew, would have been the most harrowing, edge-of-your-seat, thrill ride of the year. Instead the film’s unevenness is all the more glaring because of the inevitable comparison.

details

Vantage Point

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Bruce McGill

Director: Pete Travis

Playing at: Carmike, Chapel Hills, Cinemark, Tinseltown

Rated: PG-13 (for sequences of intense violence and action, some disturbing images and brief strong language)

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes B -