Suds on the Roof

Vantage Point did just fine at the box office without my help ($70 million), but if I were a Hollywood executive, my tagline for this movie would read:

It’s Groundhog Day meets JFK!

The first eight minutes of the movie show the President of the United States (William Hurt) being shot at a global terror summit in Spain.

Or was he?

Yes, he was.  Kind of.

Don’t worry, I didn’t ruin anything there.  It’s in the trailer. 

After eight minutes, the camera rewinds (we even hear annoying “rewinding tape” sound effects) and we see the assassination take place from a different, wait for it… vantage point!  Only this time we might get a glimpse of the shooter.

Or do we?

Yes, we do.  Kind of.

Another eight minutes goes by, the camera rewinds again (queue “rewind” sound) and we see the assassination take place from a different – you guessed it – vantage point.  Only this time we see that someone placed a bomb underneath the stage where the President was shot.

Or do we?  Or was he?

I don’t know.

The camera rewinds again.  At this point, everyone in the theater starts laughing.  This goes on a few more times, and after 45-minutes we’ve seen the same thing happen eight times in a row.

Or was he shot?

Yes, he was.

But was it really him?

Kind of.

Around halfway through the movie we learn that the President wasn’t even at the stupid conference.  Apparently, there was a high-risk that an assassination attempt was going to be made on the President at the summit, so instead of taking any chances, they sent an identical double in place of the President.  Kind of like the movie, Dave.

Question: What moron would sign up for that job? 

The real President was back in a hotel room across the street, checking out the adult section of On Demand.  And, no, I’m not ruining anything by telling you that, because its inexplicably part of the original trailer.

You’d think they’d want to keep the biggest plot-twist out of the trailers, but what do I know?

If I say anything else I risk giving away the only plot-twist that they didn’t give away in the trailer, so I’ll shut and just tell you that this movie is really lame.  If you want to see a really good movie about seeing a crime from different vantage points, rent Rashômon instead.