Vantage Point is a movie Sameer and I light-heartedly made fun of for its over-the-top action and cliched dialogue while simultaneously watching the trailer again and again in anticipation of its release. We decided not to see it in theaters due a slew of bad reviews, but I am happy to announce that all those reviews were wrong! This movie met and exceeded all my expectations. The plot follows an attempted assassination on the President while at a counter-terrorism summit that continually gets more and more unnecessarily convoluted and never actually reveals the terrorists' true motivations. And yet, by the end of the movie, you don't care at all. Because it set up a series of small mysteries and revealed them incrementally such that you finish the film feeling satisfied. It is remarkably successful at getting you to suspend your disbelief from beginning to end.Dennis Quaid was an actor whom I (and Hollywood) had forgotten about. But he gives a strong, convincing performance that anchors this entire movie. The cinematography was alright, but the real visual star was the locale. The shots were beautiful, although the rapid-fire editing made it somewhat difficult to see at times. The dialogue was not as awful as the trailer made it seem--they picked the worst sentences for the trailer, which magnified their stupidity. The action, however, was incredible. I'm generally not a fan of car chases, but this one had me sitting on the edge of my seat. It is absolutely amazing. This entire movie emanates a feeling of cool. Think Lost meets 24. And watch it.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443274/