Monday 26 January 2009

Vantage Point

I seem to be watching a lot of movies lately that beg/borrow/steal from Akira Kurasawa. This time it was Vantage Point that gets the Rashomon treatment. Badly.

It's actually not a awful movie. Some A-list or former A-list actors are littered through the film. Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Sigourney Weaver (in an extraordinarily useless role...must have needed a new bathroom in her house or something), Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, etc... All big shots trying to make it work in this ensemble piece. Yet the only character I seemed to care about was Whitaker's eyewitness to the tragic events portrayed in the film.

You know what I hate? I hate when I can spot the actor playing the bad guy right away and it turns out that I am right. Took me all of 3 minutes to figure this movie out. That is either a new personal record for me or it is damned close. The obvious choice had me doubting myself all through the picture until...duh! There it is! Holy fuck is that awful!

Like I said, the Forest Whitaker sub-plot was interesting to watch, but the rest of it? Feh. Watch the first five minutes and see if you can guess who the bad guy is. Then watch the last five minutes of it to see if you are right. I bet you will be. And I saved you an hour and half of viewing.

You are most welcome!

4 comments:

Bruce Johnson said...

There are two types of movie goers..ones that can do this (figure it out) and those that just want 'mindless' entertainment. If I am watching a film with friends, and I can figure out the plot device and ending before the film is half over, I whip out my Palm Pilot and start reading a book on it. Why waste the time.

The worst case of this was the Theatrical release of "Barb Wire"....a truely bad Pamela Anderson film....but hey, it has breasts, so it must be worth watching....well about 20 minutes into it, the plot becomes painfully apparent....it is the same script at "Casablanca"...only in this version Humphrey Bogart has huge knockers........I got up and walked out of the theater.

Verdant Earl said...

Bruce - Bogart with huge knockers, eh? African Queen would have been an entirely different film. :)

AuntyTeeni said...

I think I'm getting jaded as I get older and I can spot all the bad guys and tell what is going to happen in way too many movies. Or maybe Hollywood just isn't too original?

Slyde said...

took me about 10 minutes to spot the bad guy.. i must be getting slow in my old age...