Roshomon meets Crash in this 90-minute political thriller, which is really 15 minutes of action rewound and replayed.
I can't go into any more points of view now without giving away too much of the plot, but I'll summarize the problems I had with this film. One is the artifice itself. The first time I read a short story or novel with a structure like this, I was impressed, because it seemed fresh and unique and it underscored how different perspectives can create different "truths" or pose different sets of concerns and problems. Same with "Roshomon." It was a narrative structure that seemed right for challenging morality, a virtual advertisement for the philosophical theory of relativism. But morality isn't being challenged here, nor even truth. Levy simply uses the structure to withhold information, so that the full thrust of the narrative can be appreciated only in total. That's the theory. In practice, because so much time is spent on fringe perceptions and characters and not enough on the central dramatic question of why one agent would go bad, it feels artful, but unsatisfying. And if I see a film literally rewound again any time soon, I'm quite sure that I'll throw something at the screen. Better not invite me over for a movie. Matthew Fox, Bruce McGill, Said Taghmaoui, Ayelet Zurer, Eduardo Noriega, and James LeGros round out the rest of the main cast. The acting is competent, the Mexican location cinematography is compelling at times, but the structure wears thin, and it breaks down, really, with perspectives blurring in the third act.
Video:
"Vantage Point" looks pretty decent in 1080p, and I saw no compression artifacts from the AVC/MPEG-4 codec transfer onto a 50GB disc. Some scenes looked a little "soft" on the edge detail to me, and the colors seemed slightly desaturated throughout--too much so for my taste. There was also more grain than I would have expected for a slick movie like this. Aside from that, the fleshtones were natural, black levels were generally good, and the overall look of the film was pleasing to watch.
Audio:
The featured soundtrack is a lively Dolby TrueHD 5.1, with additional options in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1. There's good distribution of sound across all the channels, with plenty of rear-speaker involvement and the kind of deep, rich sound one would hope for in a film that's so dependent upon the emotional effects of hearing shots and explosions. The audio handles ambient sounds nicely, and the dialogue also seems rich and natural-sounding.
Extras:
So many bonus features seem gimmicky these days, but Sony found the perfect gimmick feature for a film like this: a GPS tracker exclusive to Blu-ray that enables you to chart each characters location and vantage point throughout the course of the film. It's useful for those who might be confused, or for those who are into double checking the writer and director's logic. But it's still a one-play feature, if you ask me.
The non-exclusive bonus features include a 25-minute making-of extra, "An Inside Perspective: Interviews with the Cast & Crew," which is unique because it calls it what it is, rather than a "making of" feature. But it feels like a pre-release promo, without much in the way of depth. "Plotting an Assassination" zooms in on the script and gives us answers that should have been developed better in the film itself. Don't watch this 15-minute feature first, because it's chock-full of spoilers. "Coordinating Chaos" focuses on the stunts and special effects, but it's even shorter.
Director Peter Travis's commentary is pretty standard, with a few more pauses than I would have preferred and not nearly enough anecdotes. He's apparently not anecdote-minded. Mostly, he concentrates on how this shot or that were accomplished. The only other bonus feature on this disc is a gag "deleted surveillance tape" featuring the director doing a very bad impersonation of a bad guy with gun.
For those who are into BD-Live (and have a Profile 2.0 player with Internet connection) there are a handful additional downloads, but one of them on trick photography takes longer to download than it does to play. Clearly, people are still working out the kinks in BD-Live. There's not much real gotta-have content yet. It's all superfluous, and not terribly interactive this time around.
Bottom Line:
"Vantage Point" is the type of film that will blow some people away, while others will be left thinking there's too much rubble, and feeling like maybe they've just been had.
Video:
"Vantage Point" looks pretty decent in 1080p, and I saw no compression artifacts from the AVC/MPEG-4 codec transfer onto a 50GB disc. Some scenes looked a little "soft" on the edge detail to me, and the colors seemed slightly desaturated throughout--too much so for my taste. There was also more grain than I would have expected for a slick movie like this. Aside from that, the fleshtones were natural, black levels were generally good, and the overall look of the film was pleasing to watch.
Audio:
The featured soundtrack is a lively Dolby TrueHD 5.1, with additional options in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1. There's good distribution of sound across all the channels, with plenty of rear-speaker involvement and the kind of deep, rich sound one would hope for in a film that's so dependent upon the emotional effects of hearing shots and explosions. The audio handles ambient sounds nicely, and the dialogue also seems rich and natural-sounding.
Extras:
So many bonus features seem gimmicky these days, but Sony found the perfect gimmick feature for a film like this: a GPS tracker exclusive to Blu-ray that enables you to chart each characters location and vantage point throughout the course of the film. It's useful for those who might be confused, or for those who are into double checking the writer and director's logic. But it's still a one-play feature, if you ask me.
The non-exclusive bonus features include a 25-minute making-of extra, "An Inside Perspective: Interviews with the Cast & Crew," which is unique because it calls it what it is, rather than a "making of" feature. But it feels like a pre-release promo, without much in the way of depth. "Plotting an Assassination" zooms in on the script and gives us answers that should have been developed better in the film itself. Don't watch this 15-minute feature first, because it's chock-full of spoilers. "Coordinating Chaos" focuses on the stunts and special effects, but it's even shorter.
Director Peter Travis's commentary is pretty standard, with a few more pauses than I would have preferred and not nearly enough anecdotes. He's apparently not anecdote-minded. Mostly, he concentrates on how this shot or that were accomplished. The only other bonus feature on this disc is a gag "deleted surveillance tape" featuring the director doing a very bad impersonation of a bad guy with gun.
For those who are into BD-Live (and have a Profile 2.0 player with Internet connection) there are a handful additional downloads, but one of them on trick photography takes longer to download than it does to play. Clearly, people are still working out the kinks in BD-Live. There's not much real gotta-have content yet. It's all superfluous, and not terribly interactive this time around.
Bottom Line:
"Vantage Point" is the type of film that will blow some people away, while others will be left thinking there's too much rubble, and feeling like maybe they've just been had.
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[release]23682[/release]