Vantage Point

The title of the 2008 action thriller Vantage Point suggests the nature of the story. The planned (or apparent) assassination of an American president is seen from various different perspectives. And each time we see the events leading up to the attack, we learn more about the complex plot.

Multiple viewpoint stories can work very effectively in the crime genre. Wilkie Collins proved this long ago with The Moonstone, and in a very different way, Vantage Point reminds us that, although a single viewpoint can give a narrative a great deal of emotional power, multi-viewpoints afford great potential for story development.

I liked this film a great deal. Dennis Quaid is very good as the secret service agent who is one of the few good guys, and William Hurt is, as usual, splendid as the President: nobody does bafflement as well as Hurt, I think. The very good cast also includes Sigourney Weaver.

It’s a film that is so fast-moving and convoluted that it will repay more than one viewing. Vantage Point is not an in-depth, character-driven film, but very strong on plot complication and drama. If that’s to your taste, I think you will probably enjoy it as much as I did.

The Day After Tomorrow

Disaster movies were much in vogue in my student days – The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, and plenty more – but they haven’t been quite so common in recent years. But The Day after Tomorrow is a very competent example of the genre, starring Dennis Quaid as Jake Hall, an expert on climatology, who warns a sceptical Vice President of the risk of a climatic disaster. Ian Holm, playing a British scientist, is more sympathetic and needless to say, the dire warnings of impending doom are soon fulfilled.

Jake has a troubled relationship with his son Sam, who together with a couple of friends is in New York for a student event. All of a sudden, freak weather conditions assault the Northern Hemisphere and the US President belatedly orders evacuation to the south – this offers the opportunity for a few ironic thrusts, including the temporary closure of the Mexican border by the Mexican authorities, to deter illegal immigrants from the States. Sam and his pals hole up in a library, following Jake’s instruction that they must not risk going outside in the desperate conditions, while Jake and a couple of colleagues trek up through the snow to rescue them.

I enjoyed this film. Quaid and Holm, as usual, do a very professional job, and the scenes featuring the survivors in New York are memorable – especially when Sam and the others are attacked by a pack of wolves.

The other thought that struck me was this. The disbelieving Vice President says near the start of the film that the world economy is as fragile as its climate. Maybe the next big budget disaster movie will feature the recent catastrophes on Wall Street…..