Vantage Point

Overview

Vantage Point is a 2008 American political action thriller film directed by Pete Travis and written by Barry L. Levy. The story focuses on an assassination attempt on the President of the United States in Salamanca, Spain, as seen from the various vantage points of different characters. Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver star. The film is often compared unfavorably to Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, which also employed storytelling through multiple perspectives. Rashomon used the multiple perspectives to question the possibility of truth, in a process called the Rashomon effect; in contrast, Vantage Point recounts a series of events which are re-enacted from several different perspectives and viewpoints to reveal a truthful account of what happened. Vantage Point also explores kidnapping, assassination and terrorism.