Vantage Point (2008)

Vantage Point starts off with the incident that you see in all the trailers. An incident is all the story real amounts to. We watch the first POV from that of the news crew -- however, it is real not a point of view of any specific person, we just follow the action of certain people -- when the story reaches a certain point we quickly rewind to the next POV (kinda) from the same time (which time-code on the screen becomes part of the films laughable points) the first began.

In all, we watch a very repetitive story, and not much of an actual story at that. No character study, depth or explanation of why any characters do what they do (only a slight history on ONE character). While you do not need and in depth character study for all films, usually there is someone you emphasize with.

As I watch the film, the fourth time the story rewound, the scoffs in the theater had become out-loud laughs, and not the good kind, the kind that tells you the rest of the audience agrees with your own thought of how stupid the film really is.

In the end, there is no real story and surprisingly mediocre performances from actors who usually perform rather well. This usually indicates an unskilled director. When most actors in a film look bad, including those usually good, it is the director! Other than an attempt at a film exercise of some sort, when the film was over I could only ask, "What's the point of Vantage Point?"