"Vantage Point" seeks to make the audience aware that there appear to be many truths in any situation depending on one's point of view, but instead leaves viewers wishing at least one or two perspectives had been left out.

(Listen to Network Downtime for a podcast review of "Vantage Point.") 

Set in Spain, "Vantage Point" follows U.S. President Ashton, played straightly by William Hurt, on his way to an antiterrorism summit in a square in Salamanca, Spain, where an assassination attempt and bombing happen. The film opens with an underutilized Sigourney Weaver as television news-producer Rex Brooks, directing reporters and cameramen to take in the scene at the square and in particular to ignore angry anti-American protestors. The segment is an obvious opener to a film promising to provide multiple points of view when Brooks tells the field reporter to focus on the positive presence of the U.S. leader rather than on the protest, because that is the fictional news network GNN's story.

Then the film -- in an approach that becomes annoying quickly by rewinding 23 minutes to showcase another character's perspective -- cuts to agent Thomas Barnes (played by Dennis Quaid, who does anxious and righteous well). Barnes seems unsure of himself, and the viewers quickly learn why when he mentally flashes back to his last turn at protecting the president, taking a bullet in the chest. The very public (and seemingly unsecured) plaza where the summit is set to take place will be Barnes' proving ground, at the encouragement of his fellow agent Kent Taylor, played by a miscast Matthew Fox of television's "Lost." While other agents worry if Barnes is ready to be back on active duty guarding the president, Taylor dismisses their concern with thinly veiled ulterior motives.

In another rewind, the audience learns about Howard Lewis, played by Forest Whitaker, who took home an Academy Award for his turn as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland." Estranged from his wife, Lewis is traveling in Spain and ultimately records the events of the day, while impressively chasing after terrorist suspects on the heels of U.S. agents. Another perspective is offered via Spanish police officer Enrique (Eduardo Noriega), who witnesses his lover Veronica (Ayelet Zurer) participating in a seemingly intimate exchange with Javier, played by Edgar Ramirez (whom viewers might recall as the assassin Matt Damon's character spares in "The Bourne Supremacy").