Sometimes a good movie can be ruined by one of its own trailers. You know the type. The kind of trailer that leaves you with the feeling you no longer have to see the movie because the trailer touched on all of the key elements of the plot. Sadly the trailers for Vantage Point went a step further.

The President of the United States is in Spain to sign a treaty on how countries are to work together to deal with terrorism. While there he is shot just as he is about to make a speech to an outdoor crowd. The point of the movie is that the storyline is presented to you from the perspective of several characters as the events happen, hence the title Vantage Point.

As is common with movies these days there is a twist and sadly the trailers give it away. In reality a double for the President is actually shot while he is still in his hotel room.

The beginning of the movie is rather good and the intertwining stories of the different characters do draw you in. Each character's story is different from the others but clearly connected in a realistic manner by the events happening around them. Not an entirely original idea but it was well executed.

But once the real plot is actually unveiled things start to fall apart.

In fact, the terrorist leader's entire plan is based on several outlandish assumptions that simply do not meet the criteria for suspension of disbelief. As things started becoming clear of what was really going on, I immediately started losing interest and started mocking the film instead.

Assumption 1: The leader knows that the President uses a double and knows exactly what kind of threat assessment is required for the double to be used. It is never explained how he came by this information but I'm assuming he knows this because he has someone inside the Secret Service that may or may not have access to such information.

Assumption 2: Everyone involved in the plot will trust the word of a terrorist. This includes unimportant lackeys who are eventually killed by the leader or his partner which I would think would hurt future recruitment efforts. "The last operation? It worked out but everybody but me died. Care to join me on my next daring mission?" Also includes a one-man army special forces type guy that participates in the plot against his will simply because he believes his brother being held hostage will be released. He wasn't.

Assumption 3: Secret Service agents are the dumbest people on Earth. Years of training with top of the line surveillance equipment and they don't bother to put a camera outside their own door. Oh yeah, don't bother putting cameras in the stairway either. See a lone guy approaching you wearing all black means you wait until he's already shooting you before you think to do anything. A bomb goes off in the lobby of the hotel the President is in means sending more than half the protection detail down to the lobby instead of say, getting the President out of the building immediately. Don't have any concern when no one answers the radio. That previous threat assessment that caused you to send the double in the first place can be safely ignored less than an hour later. And the list goes on.

Assumption 4: Having the ability to foresee needing a sleeper agent inside the Secret Service years in advance. Years would be required because I find it doubtful that some guy can just show up, have no past and then get the President's detail (the double at that because we knew they would send the double that we somehow knew about) right out of training.

Assumption 5: While making your getaway with the President in the back of the ambulance the roads in the immediate area would be clear enough to actually leave. Despite the overwhelming chaos you just spent the last hour creating by shooting the President and causing two explosions in the vicinity.

Plus I knew from the beginning that Mathew Fox was one of the bad guys. How? Simple. He plays a good guy on TV and when an actor playing a good guy on TV has a supporting role in a movie that has bad guys then he is one of the bad guys. It's a common tactic among actors to show their range or to avoid being typecast or something like that. Kind of ruins the moment when the twist involving his character is revealed and you're not really surprised.

In the end the good guys win simply because the cold-blooded terrorist who is now personally responsible for dozen of deaths was unable to run down a little girl in the street.

So, A for effort and the first half is rather good. Everything after that is open to interpretation.