Every time Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe” startled a sleeping Bill Murray out of bed in Groundhog Day, the audience howled with laugher, sympathizing with the plight of a man forced to relive day after day after day. Unfortunately for the producers of the new political thriller Vantage Point, each rewind of the clock provokes the same reaction, but this time with the audience playing the helpless victims forced to relive the same moment after moment after moment.
The movie had an intriguing concept of a presidential assassination on foreign soil told from the perspectives of various witnesses, including the president (William Hurt) himself. A stellar cast was assembled to carry it, including Dennis Quaid (channeling Clint Eastwood from In the Line of Fire), Sigourney Weaver (channeling a no-nonsense network news producer) and Forest Whitaker (channeling, what else, a very nervous Forest Whitaker).
But, like the president’s speech, something went wrong along the way. Test screenings should have helped the director discover that the audience would laugh at all the wrong times and that the bond between the POTUS (as the secret service referred to him as) and Quaid seems a little too sentimental (think Guarding Tess).
(read the rest of the review here)
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