Starring Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, and Sigourney Weaver. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, February 22, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

For the first few minutes, Vantage Point looks like it might develop into something genuinely interesting. Secret service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) is back on the job a year after taking a bullet for the president (William Hurt, so blandly familiar that he just has to be a Republican). Barnes is understandably jumpy, since he’ll be guarding the president’s back at an international antiterrorism conference in Spain, an emotionally charged event that kicks off in an open plaza packed with protesters.

The agent’s worries are justified. He watches helplessly as the president is assassinated by what appears to be a lone gunman in a nearby hotel window. Before the enormous crowd of onlookers can absorb the shock, there’s a huge explosion. From there, director Pete Travis keeps replaying the same moments leading up to the catastrophe from no less than eight different points of view, including the perspective of a quick-thinking tourist (Forest
Whitaker) who captures the event with his camera. Considering that we’re forced to keep going over much of the same territory in order to gradually piece things together, Travis is understandably intent on jamming us into reverse at a blistering pace. So far, so good, right? All we have to do is sit back and enjoy what’s apparently intended to be an intoxicating combination of Rashomon and In the Line of Fire.

Unfortunately, Barry Levy’s far-fetched script lets us down. There are two major plot twists: one is highly implausible and the other—although a quick solution to the increasingly overheated plot—is quite simply beyond belief. As for the performances, Lost’s Matthew Fox is wasted here, but a sexily stoic sexy Quaid manages to carry the movie with a mere handful of lines. Not surprisingly, Whitaker endows his slight role with real empathy. Watch for an impressive turn by Sigourney Weaver as a CNN–type news director who doesn’t stick around long enough to take the blame for this disappointing mess. Smart move.